


Ian and Mary at Hogwarts

by Martin_Bajar



Series: Auror in Training (Worktitle) [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-13
Updated: 2015-09-01
Packaged: 2018-03-07 10:56:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3172020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Martin_Bajar/pseuds/Martin_Bajar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ian O'Connor starts his career at Hogwarts</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. First year (1988-1989)

**Author's Note:**

> Tamara Primrose, Fiona Dragonheart and Melia McKinnon are characters taken over from three other persons (who as far as I know are not on this site), with permission of course
> 
> Ian O'Connor and Mary O'Connor are completely my own though, just like Ellen Geerts (who's obviously not British) and David Stiles (who is British)

**The letter from Hogwarts**

When Ian saw the owl flying in, he knew it was finally there. His Hogwarts letter. He was 11 years old after all (and judging by the fact that he accidentally managed to set fire to his father’s desk he was most certainly not a squib.

**_Hogwarts School of_ **

**_Witchcraft and Wizardry_ **

**_Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore_ **

_(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme_

_Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)_

_Dear Mr O’Connor,_

_We are pleased to inform you that you have a place at_

_Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find_

_enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment._

_Term begins on 1 September. We await your owl by no later_

_than 31 July._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Minerva McGonagall_

_Deputy Headmistress_                                                                             

 

After reading his letter through and through a couple of times. Knowing it would be coming was after all not the same as actually having your letter in your hand. When a voice suddenly asked, “What do you have in your hands Ian?” He immediately stopped reading.

“My Hogwarts letter little sister”, Ian answered, knowing well enough that Mary O’Connor (his sister) hated being called little sister.

“I still need to wait one more year, that’s so unfair”, Mary answered, “and I’m bigger than you Ian.”

Which was actually true, between Mary and Ian it was clear who would inherit their father’s height. Not that Ian was small at that.

“I know Mary. Just between you and me, I actually don’t think they allow giantesses at Hogwarts”, Ian joked.

“How Funny Ian”, Mary answered, not remotely upset, she had after all heard much worse from her brother.

 

“I’d better send Morrigan to Hogwarts”, Ian said after a bit of bickering with Mary. Morrigan was Ian’s black owl.

“Hogwarts, does that mean your letter finally came”, Ian suddenly heard his mother yelling.

“It finally did”, Ian answered.

“Do make sure you won’t be in your father’s old house”, Sinead O’Connor (their mother) teased.

Their father, Michael O’Connor, was a Slytherin. Sinead was a Ravenclaw.

“We can go to Dublin Saturday”, Sinead eventually decided. There were quite a lot of magical shops in Dublin, if you only knew where to find them.

**The train**

Since they had arrived rather late at the platform, most seats were already taken. In the last cabin there were only 2 girls.

“would you mind if I sat here?”, Ian asked.

After the girls answered that it was no problem, he sat down.

“Are you first years as well?” Ian decided to ask.

“Yes we are”, the redhead answered, “I am Tamara Primrose.”

“Fiona Dragonheart”, the blond girl now said.

“Ian O’Connor”, Ian replied, “nice to meet you.”

After a while, Fiona and Tamara had resumed their earlier conversation, so Ian wisely decided not to interrupt them. Carefully he took an old book out of his bag and started reading it. He quickly gave up.

 

“What’s that book about”, Fiona asked (it was after all not that usual for people to start reading ancient books in the train).

“An old Irish spell book”, Ian answered, “but I think it is still too difficult for me. But I’ll do plan to become proficient in Celtic magic by the time I finish at Hogwarts.”

“Is there a difference with other magic then?” Tamara asked.

“Celtic magic is less structured than the Latin magic we’ll learn at Hogwarts”, Ian answered, “not many people still know it nowadays, which gives you an advantage if you do know it.”

 

A couple of hours later, Ian noticed they would almost be at Hogwarts, “you’ll better get changed, I’ll leave you and change myself in the bathroom.”

In his school uniform, Ian headed back towards his cabin and sat down.

“Do you have any idea which house you’ll be in?” Ian asked, “I know I’ll probably be in Ravenclaw or Slytherin, since my parents were in them.

“I don’t know”, Fiona replied, “probably Ravenclaw or so.”

“I have no idea”, Tamara answered as well.

 

When the train arrived at the station, they were awaited by a gigantic man (who’s size made Ian decide to never again call his sister a giantess again).

“First years, follow me”, Hagrid (who else) called out. The first years followed Hagrid to the boats and crossed the lake.

 

**The Sorting Hat**

At the castle gate, a Scottish woman (McGonagall) took charge of the nineteen first years. She brought them to a small room right outside the Great Hall where she told them to wait.

 

A few minutes later, she took them in and made them wait in front of a small stool with a battered hat on top, the hat began to sing. When the hat finished its song, all first years knew what to expect.

 

“Fiona Dragonheart”, McGonagall said.

Fiona walked forward and put the hat on her head. “Ravenclaw”, the hat yelled a few seconds later.

“Ellen Geerts”, McGonagall said. Curiously, Ian watched a small redhead take the hat, that was most certainly no British name.

“Slytherin”, the hat yelled after almost a minute.

A few more names passed, then Ian’s name was called. Ian now walked forward and put on the hat.

 

“An O’Connor again”, the hat spoke in Ian’s mind, “it has been a long time. But it’s no time for reminiscing on the past. Let me see: a good brain, a lot of curiosity. Those traits would be valued in Ravenclaw. Your curiosity is however not limited to benign magic, you wish to know every magic which can help yourself. Those traits are maybe better suited for Slytherin. I think I might go for...” “Slytherin!” the hat now yelled across the Great Hall.

 

Ian went to the Slytherin table and sat down next to the non-British new Slytherin. Tamara was now sorted into Gryffindor.

Dumbledore now stood up and began to speak, “good evening students. Welcome to another year at Hogwarts. I won’t hold you up much longer however, eat well.”

McGonagall quickly spoke to him, after which Dumbledore added, “as Professor McGonagall reminded me, I still have to inform all our new students that the Forest is off-limits to all students.”

 

Now the Headmaster had stopped speaking for the second time, food appeared on the tables. Ian and the other Slytherins began to eat. When they were almost saturated with food, Ian began to speak.

“I couldn’t help noticing your name”, Ian told Ellen, “I presume you’re from the continent?”

“I am”, Ellen answered, “I considered it better to study outside my country.”

“How so?”, Ian asked, “I personally study outside my own country as well, but Ireland has no Magical Academy.”

“That’s not my problem”, Ellen answered, “we have two Academies, one in Antwerp and one in Namur.” Knowing that this wouldn’t stop the questions, she continued: “My father is the Belgian Minister for Magic. That’s why I don’t want to study there.”

 

A discussion about quidditch drifted over from a couple of other students, they were asking each other about their favourite quidditch teams. After a while, one of them decided to ask Ian and Ellen their favourite teams.

“Antverpia”, Ellen answered, “it’s my home city’s team. They did quite well in the European League last year.”

“I don’t follow quidditch”, Ian answered now. Knowing how this could be interpreted, he continued, “and no, I am not muggleborn, I just don’t like the sport.”

 

“You’re not afraid of flying aren’t you”, another first year student sneered.

“Most certainly not”, Ian answered still quite polite, “I am quite fond of low altitude cross country flying. But I don’t suppose a sasanach like you has ever heard of it.”

“What did you just call me?” the student replied.

“An Englishman”, Ian answered (which was perfectly true, although in this context he actually meant is as an insult), “the sport is virtually unknown outside of Ireland. So I merely clarified the reason why you probably don’t know the sport.”

 

“I do know it”, Ellen now intruded, Trying to at least diffuse the tension between the other student and Ian a bit. “The sport is practiced in Flanders as well. It’s simply flying at high speed with maximum one metre above the ground, usually in a forest with lots of elevation”, Ellen continued.

“That sounds dangerous”, the boy mentioned.

“It is”, Ian answered, “but the accidents are usually non fatal. Anyhow, I am Ian O’Connor.”

“David Stiles”, the boy now introduced himself.

 

**Potions**

The first day passed rather uneventful, Ian and the others did get lost a few times. Having doors pretending to be walls, walls pretending to be doors and moving stairs. That didn’t really help in navigating through the school. Potions however was one lesson in which they had no problems whatsoever finding the classroom. The three Slytherin first years arrived in the classroom before the five new Gryffindor students.

 

Ian quickly learned that Snape had a huge bias in favour of Slytherin (luckily for Ian, he was a Slytherin). It began with a couple of simple questions, “who can tell me where I can find a bezoar?”

“You can find one in the stomach of a goat, or if you have half a brain in your pocket as well”, Ian answered.

Luckily for him, Ian was a Slytherin (and furthermore: Snape actually had a bezoar in his pocket). “Correct on both accounts”, Snape answered, “15 points for Slytherin.”

“And why don’t we use a copper cauldron?”

“Copper can react with magical ingredients resulting in failed potions”, Tamara answered.

“An incomplete, but essentially correct assessment”, Snape admitted, Gryffindor received no points.

This obviously resulted in dissatisfied Gryffindors, one of them even dared objecting, after which Snape docked five points from Gryffindor.

 

“You should now all have your ingredients and your cauldron”, Snape said, “you are to make me a potion to cure boils. The recipe can be found in your workbook. You have one hour.”

Ian immediately began, this was something in which he had no problems whatsoever. With ten minutes to spare, he handed in his potion. The Gryffindor student Tamara was right behind. When the hour was over, Ian and Tamara were still the only ones who had handed in a completed potion.

“This potion has exactly the right aroma and colour”, Snape now told the class, while pointing at Ian’s potion (although the aroma and colouring of Tamara’s potion was nearly identical). “I award ten more points for Slytherin.”

 

On the way back to the Slytherin common room, David was still laughing about the 25 points Slytherin received.

“The look on the Gryffindor students’ faces was priceless”, he said.

“I’m not sure it’s that good for us tough”, Ian replied. “How can getting free points not be good”, David retorted.

“Because you can be sure that those Gryffindor students aren’t happy with us now”, Ian explained, “it’s never a good thing to make too many enemies.”

“I agree”, Ellen answered, “while my father was still at the Antwerp Academy, they still had French speaking and Dutch speaking students in one school.”

 

“Tensions between both groups became more and more severe, especially between the last years. Duels in the corridors happened more and more, the teachers were barely able to contain them.” When this had sunk in, Ellen continued, “Twenty years ago, in 1968, a Dutch speaking first year student accidently came in a crossfire between seventh year students and received no less than eight stun spells against him. The boy died. Later on they build a new Academy in Namur and moved all French speaking students there. I’m personally glad the tensions aren’t like that here, but they could be.”

 

**The end of year**

The year passed rather uneventful, the three Slytherin students all managed to pass their examinations (although David’s pass in History of Magic was only barely so).

 

No one in Slytherin was surprised when the green banners draped the ceiling during that year’s end of year feast, they had after all won the house cup as well during the three previous years. Ian was certainly quite proud about it, he had after all worked quite hard (there was a reason why the sorting hat had hesitated between Slytherin and Ravenclaw).

  
During the ride home. Ian, Ellen and David sat down together.

“I’ll miss you guys”, Ellen admitted.

“I’ll make sure to write loads of letters to both of you”, Ian promised, “just watch out for Morrigan...”

“She bites”, Ellen and David answered together.


	2. Second year (1989-1990)

**Mary**

Mary had (understandably) spent a large part of the summer watching for owls. Ian’s sister was eleven now after all. That summer, Ian had come home having learned lots of magical spells (even if he wasn’t allowed to use them). Just knowing Ian already could do them, made the summer (and school year before the summer) look that much longer. Why did the Ministry insist on such an arbitrary criterion as age? It was therefore no surprise at all to have Mary notice the school owls first.

 

“They have arrived!” Mary immediately started shouting throughout the house.

This while running towards the school owls and grabbing her very own Hogwarts letter. Luckily the owls weren’t on their first delivery and had become used to eleven year old boys and girls being hyped about receiving their Hogwarts letter.

 

At the breakfast table, the only subject of conversation was obviously Hogwarts. Although that was mostly due to Mary changing the subject back towards Hogwarts when it threatened to become something else.

“Don’t worry sis”, Ian mentioned when the subject became the houses, “I told the Sorting Troll to put you in Slytherin with me.”

“Ian’s lying isn’t he?” Mary asked her parents, “the sorting isn’t really done by a troll, is it?”

Sinead and Michael (their parents) couldn’t help chuckling.

“I”m not telling”, Sinead said, but that was just an ancient magical tradition. No one told his or her children or younger siblings how the sorting was done.

 

**Ian**

When Ian and his family visited Dublin the next day, their first visit was the Dublin branch of Gringotts. Originally a separate bank, but since a few years also in the hands of the Gringotts goblins. After retrieving some money. The decided to visit Moira Byrne’s wandshop first. While even Ian’s father admitted Ollivander was probably the better wandmaker, their family had still always received their wands with the Byrne’s.

 

“Ian O’Connor”, Moira immediately greeted him when he and his sister entered the shop (their parents were already to the bookshop), “I do hope you took good care of the wand I sold you.”

Ian’s wand was incidentally the first wand ever sold by Moira, who had only taken over the shop the previous year from her grandfather.

“Rowanwood 12”6, unbendable, dragon heartstring”, Moira continued, “I’ll never be able to remember every wand I’ve sold, but your wand was after all the first.”

 

Then Moira noticed Mary. “You must be Ian’s sister”, Moira now began, “I’m sorry for not noticing you before. I presume you’re starting at Hogwarts this year?”

“I am”, Mary answered. “Let me see about outfitting you with a wand then”, Moira said, “can you tell me your wand arm?”

“I’m lefthanded”, Mary answered.

“Excellent”, Moira replied, “Let us start with this one: rowanwood 12”, unbendable with a unicorn hair core.” Moira snatched the wand back even before Mary had a good grip on it.

 

“Not that one”, Moira chuckled (she had always liked this part, the wand chooses the witch after all), “this is one of my own creations”, Moira said while presenting a long wand, “Oak 13”, flexible, thestral hair core.”

Ian could feel the atmosphere changing.

“It seems like your wand has chosen you”, Moira said with a smile. She always liked it when she was able to sell one of her own creations instead of one of her grandfather. “I’ll give you a discount”, Moira told Mary (did I mention she liked selling her own creations?).

After paying for Mary’s wand, Ian and Mary left the shop. Mary still needed her uniform after all.

 

**Mary**

When Mary was finally on the train to Hogwarts, she had the same problem Ian had the year before. She had to find room somewhere (Ian had already occupied a cabin with his Slytherin friends). At the end she saw no other option than to squeeze in with the last carriage. It was clear that the only ones actually knowing each other already were the two redheads (and Mary had no difficulty noticing the fact they were clearly twins).

 

“Is the train always this full?” Mary asked.

“No idea”, one of the twins answered.

“We’re in our first year”, the other continued.

“Do you always complete each other’s sentences?” Mary asked (unable to stop herself).

“Sure we do”, Fred and George Weasley simultaneously answered.

“I’m Fred Weasley and he’s George”, George Weasley lied.

“I’m Fred, you’re George”, Fred Weasley retorted (clearly enjoying himself).

Mary began to regret sharing their cabin.

“I’m Alicia, Alicia Spinnet”, a black haired girl now introduced herself.

“Lee Jordan”, a boy with black dreadlocks also introduced himself.

“Mary O’Connor”, Mary now also introduced herself (everyone else had already done so hadn’t they?).

 

Later on, the conversation was about the Hogwarts houses.

“We will probably be in Gryffindor”, Fred or George now said.

Mary had no idea who was who at this time.

“Our entire family has been in Gryffindor”, the other twin took over.

“Dad would probably disown us if we managed not to become Gryffindors.”

“As long as we won’t be in Slytherin, they would get over it.”

“True, anything except Slytherin”, Lee Jordan chimed in.

“For you information, my father was in Slytherin”, Mary couldn’t help but throw in the conversation, “and so is my brother.”

“You can’t deny Slytherin has the highest concentration of dark wizards among the four houses”, Lee Jordan now responded.

“You can’t deny the fact that the greatest wizard who ever lived was a Slytherin”, Mary retorted.

“You Know Who wasn’t the greatest...”, Lee began.

Before Mary continued, “I was actually referring to Merlin.” That stopped Lee right in his tracks.

 

**Ian**

Ian and his friends had already been waiting for quite some time when the first year students finally entered the Great Hall.

Especially Mary looked quite relieved.

“What did you tell her?” Ellen asked Ian.

“I told Mary the sorting was done by a troll.”

“Good one”, David chuckled.

 

“Roger Davies”, McGonagall began. He became a Ravenclaw.

Cedric Diggory became a Hufflepuff. Angelina Johnson and Lee Jordan became Gryffindors. Some other names passed until Melia McKinnon became a Ravenclaw.

“Mary O’Connor”, McGonagall now said.

Mary came forward and put on the hat, it took a lot less time than during Ian’s sorting. “Ravenclaw!” the hat yelled.

Ian, Ellen and David were probably the only ones clapping at the Slytherin table. But that was only to be expected. After the Weasley twins became Gryffindors, the sorting ceremony was finished.

 

After the traditional greeting by Dumbledore and the singing of the school song (which sounded quite ridiculous when everyone sang at a different speed), it was finally time to start eating. Ian did make sure to watch the Ravenclaw table, after all he wanted to congratulate his sister before she disappeared in the Ravenclaw tower.

 

**Mary**

When the meal was finished, Mary followed the Ravenclaw prefects together with the other Ravenclaw first years. She was still a bit bewildered about the odd behavior of a blonde second year student. When Mary sat down at the Ravenclaw table, Fiona (she was the blonde student in question) immediately asked whether Mary was Ian’s sister.

When Mary asked, “Ian’s my brother, how so?”

Fiona just muttered, “I saw him clapping for you from the Slytherin table.” Never actually giving a reason why she even looked towards the Slytherin table (especially since she sat with her back towards the Slytherin table, which made that quite difficult).

 

Among her fellow first years, she had mostly spoken with Melia McKinnon and Roger Davies (who sat the closest by, apart from Fiona). Mary considered Melia quite nice, but couldn’t really like Roger Davies. Davies was too arrogant and self sure, he had even tried to impress Mary by saying he was an excellent flier and would certainly join the quidditch team next year.

“Next you’ll be saying that you’re going to be world champion with the English team”, Mary sneered, “although it seems quite improbable for England to beat Ireland.”

 

They hadn’t quite left the Great Hall, when Ian and his friends barred the way.

“I told you it would be Ravenclaw”, Ian yelled towards her.

“Congratulations Mary”, Ellen now also said (Ellen and David had spent a week with the O’Connors during the summer holiday).

Then one of the Ravenclaw prefects told Ian and his friends to let them pass if they didn’t want a detention on their first day back.

 

“And that was Ian”, Mary told Melia after continuing on her path towards the Ravenclaw tower.

At the entrance, it seemed like they had to answer a riddle before gaining entrance.

“Is there a volunteer?” one of the prefects asked.

Mary stepped forward, “I’d like to try.”

“What was first, the phoenix or the ash”, a voice asked.

Mary thought for a while before answering, “neither was first, the phoenix and the ash are in an eternal cycle.” The door opened, so Mary was quite certain her answer was sufficient.

 

**Ian**

Near the end of the year, it was time for the second year students to decide which optional courses they would follow during the next year.

“One thing is for sure”, Ian mentioned, “I’m not going to follow Divination.”

“I’m quite sure I agree with you”, Ellen said.

“It could be interesting though”, David retorted, “on the other hand, why bother?”

 

“I think I’m going for Ancient Runes and Muggle Studies”, Ian decided.

“Even Ancient Runes would be weird”, David mentioned, “I don’t think there are many non Ravenclaw students following it. But Muggle studies?”

“Muggles can be quite dangerous you know”, Ian defended himself, “I believe it to be important to know more about them.”

“Why do you consider muggles dangerous?” Ellen asked curiously.

“Have you ever heard from the Nagasaki Academy of Magic?” Ian asked her.

“There is no Nagasaki Academy of Magic”, David replied in her stead.

 

“Well, there used to be one, until the American muggles dropped a powerful bomb on Nagasaki”, Ian informed them, “the bomb levelled the city and the Academy with it. Most of the Japanese wizards between 11 and 17 died that day. There are more of those bombs.”

“No wonder the Japanese wizards don’t like American wizards”, Ellen replied after a while (knowing more than the average student about magical diplomacy, she was after all a Minister of Magic’s daughter).

 

At the end, David and Ellen agreed to follow Muggle Studies as well. Ellen decided to take Arithmancy as her second course, David decided to follow Ellen’s lead. Snape was obviously surprised to have his second year Slytherins choose these courses, which were after all not very Slytherin.

 

**Mary**

“Come on Melia”, Mary pleaded, “it’s the quidditch final. Who wins the final wins the cup.”

Ravenclaw, Gryffindor and Slytherin were quite evenly matched that year. But although Charlie Weasley’s Gryffindor had beaten Hufflepuff by 270 to 30, the final would still be between Ravenclaw and Slytherin. A difference of 10 points was sufficient to decide upon the winner.

“Mary, we have examinations”, Melia objected.

“As if there is even the tiniest chance you won’t ace all your examinations”, Mary tried in vain before departing to the Stadium.

 

When Mary arrived at the stadion, the stands were almost completely filled. At the end, Mary could only take the seat next to that insufferable Roger Davies.

 “Welcome to the quidditch final”, Lee Jordan yelled through the stadion, “tonight’s match will decide who wins the Quidditch Cup. Will Slytherin’s brute force or the skill of Ravenclaw’s excellent chasers ensure victory?”

 

“And yes, the match has begun. Ravenclaw has the Quaffle. Dragonheart rushes towards the hoops. That was close”, Lee Jordan announced.

A bludger barely missed Fiona Dragonheart’s head.

“Are you blind, you could have stopped that bludger”, Mary yelled against the Ravenclaw beaters, who were clearly outclassed by their Slytherin counterparts.

“She scores!” Lee Jordan announced, “Ravenclaw leads with ten to zero!”

 

The Slytherin beaters effectively prevented any further goal by Ravenclaw, but Ravenclaw’s chasers were still able to keep Slytherin away from their hoops.

“It looks like the Slytherin seeker has spotted the Snitch”, Lee Jordan announced. A lucky hit by a Ravenclaw beater stopped the Slytherin seeker right in his tracks however.

“Wait”, Lee Jordan announced, “the Ravenclaw seeker has captured the Snitch. Ravenclaw wins!”

 

A roar was heard throughout the Quidditch stadium, and not only from Ravenclaw students. Every student not in Slytherin cheered. Although in Charlie Weasley’s case the cheer was a bit repressed (he had after all wanted to end his last quidditch house cups victorious).

Mary hugged the person closest to her saying, “we won, we won, we won!” Before remembering she disliked Roger Davies (who was the person closest to her) and rapidly looking away.

 

When Mary returned to the Ravenclaw tower, she was still hyped.

“I know that we won”, Melia said exasperated, “but I actually just want to study.”

Luckily for Melia, most other Ravenclaw students started studying in earnest as well. The night was still young, wasn’t it?

 

**Ian**

The year had ended quite fast. There would be some changes among the teachers however. Once again they were apparently incapable of retaining the Defense against the Dark Arts teacher (meaning that Ian would have his third Defense teacher next year). The Muggle Studies teacher, professor Quirrel, left on a sabbatical. Although Ian didn’t really mind the last (the Defense teacher was a shame, because she was an excellent teacher).

  
When the examinations were over (once again, Ian passed them all), it was time to end this year. Luckily, Ellen had invited Ian and David to come over during the summer, so he probably wouldn’t miss his friends the entire time. Ian had to admit he actually looked forward to the summer.


	3. Third year (1990-1991)

**Mary**

“Come on Ian”, Mary once again told her brother, “I just want you to take a broom and dodge whatever I hit your way.”

Ever since mother had bought Mary her Cleansweep 7, she had barely spend a moment on the ground.

“You know I don’t even like quidditch”, Ian replied, “furthermore, I still have bruises from last time.”

Mary had decided she wanted to be a beater in the Ravenclaw quidditch team. It would be unusual for a team to have a female beater (except of course in case of the Holyhead Harpies, but all-female quidditch teams were unusual anyhow).

 

“I’m reading”, Ian replied once again when Mary kept asking him to partake.

“You’ve been trying to read that spell book for ages and still haven’t succeeded”, Mary objected.

“Why do you think I’ve chosen Ancient Runes?” Ian replied.

“Because you want to read those Celtic spell books”, Mary answered, “but you still haven’t had the lessons, so get yourself on your broom.”

At the end Ian did decide to take his broom (mostly to get Mary to stop asking it).

 

**Ian**

“I still have bruises all over”, Ian complained to his friends, “why in Maeve’s name did my parents give her a broom?”

“At least that was better than what I had to go through”, Ellen replied, “after you left, father had to go to a convention between Ministers of Magic. I can assure you, that it is quite boring to have to spend a week in the United States. Their secrecy-legislation is even worse than the European legislations, foreign wizards and witches are under constant supervision.”

 

Ellen continued, “even I wasn’t allowed to go out unaccompanied by a FALM-agent, and I’m the daughter of a Minister of Magic.”

“What’s FALM”, Ian asked.

“The Federal Agency for the Legislation of Magic”, Ellen replied, “their Director has about the same function as a Minister of Magic here.”

“I’m not a Minister’s daughter though”, David suddenly mentioned, “maybe that’s why he kept on following us.”

“You took David with you?” Ian now asked, “that’s the first I’ve heard from it.”

“Jealous?” David jokingly asked.

 

“Of course not”, Ian replied, “I don’t have a problem with you being a couple.”

“We’re not a couple”, David and Ellen replied simultaneously (they were still thirteen weren’t they?).

“So it is purely a coincidence you took the same courses as Ellen”, Ian replied before quickly continuing to prevent David from retorting, “anyhow, I’ve always considered Ellen here as a second sister. Specifically, one who doesn’t try to beat balls in my direction with a bat.”

 

**Mary**

It was no surprise that Mary was one of the first to arrive at the quidditch pit. To her chagrin, Roger Davies was the other one who had already arrived.

“You know that it is almost impossible for both of us to become chaser, do you?” Roger Davies almost immediately mentioned, “the team already has two excellent chasers.”

The third chaser from the previous year had finished her education.

“As if I even want to become chaser”, Mary replied, “I want to be a beater.”

“And how likely is it for a girl to become beater”, Roger sneered.

“I wouldn’t repeat that in front of our quidditch captain”, Mary retorted, “last time I checked his sister is beater in the Holyhead Harpies.”

 

The old team (except those that had left Hogwarts) entered.

“Let’s see what we’ve got,” captain Ianto Jones began, “can you all take your broom and fly a lap around the pit?”

Mary didn’t waste time and took off.

When she finished the lap and landed, Ianto resumed speaking, “at least there are some among you who are actually able to fly. As you know, we need a keeper, three chasers and two beaters.”

Ianto was seeker in the Ravenclaw team.

 

“We will start by selecting our chasers”, Ianto continued, “our first exercise is flying across the field and throwing the quaffle through one of the hoops from halfway the field. Afterwards we will practice passing the quaffle towards each other.”

The potential chasers took off and started the exercise. At the end there were only 5 candidates left.

“Let’s increase the difficulty”, Ianto mentioned, “we will do a short match with only chasers, I will fly in one of the teams.”

Ianto divided the candidates and himself and started the short match. At the end, Roger Davies was selected. Fiona Dragonheart and the other chaser from the previous year would stay on the team.

 

“Now I would like to see our Keeper candidates”, Ianto continued, “you will fly in front of the hoops, one candidate at a time. Then our chasers will keep on trying to score, your objective is to block as many quaffles as you can.”

This exercise was quite straightforward and at the end, a keeper was chosen as well.

 

“Last, but not least”, Ianto Jones now said, “we need our beaters. Candidates, your exercise is even more straightforward than the previous one. I will fly around and you must try to hit me with a bludger. You will fly one by one.”

 

Since Mary had been the first beater candidate to arrive, she was allowed to start. Gleefully, she kept swinging the bludger towards captain Jones. Ianto was barely able to avoid being hit and could hardly fly around due to a constant barrage of the bludgers.

“Next”, Ianto shouted after a short while (after all, he couldn’t use up all his energy against Mary).

At the end, Ianto managed to grab the bludgers (basically, he took out his wand and forced them in their crate). Mary and a third year boy were chosen as the new beaters.

 

When his team was completely selected, Ianto decided to address his complete team.

“I believe you are all aware this is my last chance to win the cup”, he began, “I’ve seen you fly and it makes me confident that we have a very decent chance to actually win this year. I expect you all to attend training on tuesday, thursday, saturday and sunday evening. In case you think that would leave insufficient time to study, the Ravenclaw quidditch team has permission to study in the library after closing time.”

A bit later, Ianto thought of a practical matter, “you’ll get your quidditch robes before the training next tuesday.”

“And the bats?” Mary asked.

“Yes, you will get your bats then as well."

 

At this time, Charlie Weasley entered the quidditch pit.

“We reserved the pit after nine”, Charlie Weasley said.

“We were just leaving”, Ianto replied.

When the Ravenclaw team left, one of the Weasley twins spoke up, “what’s your function in the team Mary?”

“Smacking bludgers into your general direction”, Mary replied.

“You do know that we would hit them right back, don’t you?” Fred or George retorted.

“I’d like to see you try”, Mary bantered right back, before leaving the Gryffindor team (who had done their selections a bit earlier) to train in peace.

 

**Ian**

Ian looked forward to his first ever Muggle Studies lesson (although the Slytherin students in the other years considered Ian, Ellen and David crazy for even following it). The teacher apparently was a quite eccentric witch named Charity Burbage. When they entered the class, it was like no class they had ever seen. For starters, the chairs were all in a circle in the middle of the class. It was immediately clear that professor Burbage wanted her students to speak.

 

When all the seats were taken (the only Gryffindor, Tamara Primrose, had taken a seat exactly opposite of the three Slytherins), the teacher began to speak.

“Welcome students”, Burbage began, “I thought we could start by getting to know each other a little better. Just give your name, tell us a bit about yourself and tell me why you chose muggle studies.”

When no one decided to begin, Burbage began herself: “I am Charity Burbage, I finished my education here six years ago as a Hufflepuff student. I spend the next year travelling across the earth in order to see the variety in muggle culture.”

 

Ellen at the end decided to speak, “I am Ellen Geerts, as you probably know I’m Flemish. I chose to study at Hogwarts because my father is the Belgian Ministry of Magic. At least here I’m not the Minister’s daughter. I chose Muggle Studies because my father has to liaison with Muggle leaders all the time and I’m interested.”

Apart from Charity Burbage and the Slytherins, Ellen being a Minister’s daughter was news to all of them.

 

Ian took over now, “I am Ian O’Connor from Ireland, I intend to apply as an auror after finishing Hogwarts. I also try to learn Celtic Magic. I chose Muggle Studies because Muggles can be dangerous and I don’t think we even have a chance of surviving a conflict with them. Therefore it seems essential to learn about them and in doing so better maintain our secrecy.”

“That’s not the usual reason to follow this class”, Burbage mentioned, “but it’ll do.”

The next person began.

 

**Mary**

“Welcome to the first quidditch match of the year, Gryffindor versus Ravenclaw”, Lee Jordan announced, “both teams will play with an all new beater team and one new chaser. Ravenclaw also has a new keeper. For both teams this is the first real test. Will Charlie Weasley or Ianto Jones be victorious?”

 

Mary held her broom steady in the air, ready to get to business when the game would commence. Ianto and Charlie held themselves steady in the middle of the field.

“The snitch is gone”, Lee Jordan yelled, “and the whistle is blown, the game commences.”

Angelina Johnson grabbed the Quaffle and raced towards the Ravenclaw hoops. Mary rapidly slammed a bludger in her direction, which forced Angelina to drop the quaffle, allowing Roger Davies to take over. Roger Davies passed to Fiona Dragonheart who scored the first points.

 

One of the Weasley twins now slammed a bludger towards Mary, who smacked it right back.

“I’ll handle the Weasleys”, Mary yelled towards her fellow Ravenclaw beater, “you protect the rest of the team.”

As she said before, Mary did her best to keep the twins from hindering her teammates, she wasn’t completely successful, but with one against two that couldn’t be expected.

“30 to 10 for Ravenclaw”, Lee Jordan announced, “and just slam O’Connor from her broom.”

Not that Mary noticed it, but this lead to professor McGonagall reprimanding Lee Jordan.

 

The sun had already set when Lee Jordan suddenly announced, “Ianto Jones has the snitch, Ravenclaw wins by 210 to 40.”

Very tired (it had taken a very long time for Ianto to capture the snitch), Mary descended. Almost immediately, she was met by her Gryffindor counterparts.

“That was fun”, Mary said.

“It sure was”, one of the Weasley’s replied.

Both Mary and the twins knew that if Mary hadn’t kept the twins busy, they could have protected Charlie against the other Ravenclaw Beater. The fact that Ianto was barely bothered by bludgers had a huge influence on him grabbing the snitch (Ianto knew well enough that Charlie Weasley was the better seeker).

 

“I was wrong”, Roger Davies later told Mary, “you are a pretty beater.”

“Excuse me”, Mary replied.

“I meant a pretty good beater”, Roger Davies continued, “not that you aren’t pretty as well.”

Mary had no idea how to reply to that (the pretty part, not the pretty good beater part), at the end she knew at least something to say, “you’re not a bad chaser. At least for as far as I could see in between slamming bludgers to the Weasleys.”

“Friends?” Roger Davies asked holding out his hand. Mary took his hand.

 

**Ian**

Ian was quite glad he had chosen to follow Ancient Runes, it was a lot more interesting than he had thought before. Furthermore, professor Babbling was quite helpful concerning the translation of Ian’s old Irish spellbooks. She had even allowed Ian to work on those books instead of on the homework his classmates got.

“Are you seriously going back to the library”, David asked, “it might be a natural habitat for Ravenclaw students. But certainly not for Slytherins.”

Drawing a few glares from insulted Ravenclaw students passing them in the corridor.

“Maybe it should be”, Ian responded, “after all, knowledge is power. And you can’t deny the scrying spell I discovered isn’t handy.”

Ian was referring to the Celtic spell, fuinneog, which temporary created a window through which you could look at other places.

 

“Allright, I admit it”, David gave in, “at least that spell is handy. Although it’s a shame the teachers have wards on their rooms which makes it impossible to use it and get a look at the exam questions.”

“Can you believe I never even thought of that possibility?” Ian now asked.

“What in Merlin’s name are you even doing in Slytherin”, David joked before continuing, “I almost tried, but Ellen had read Hogwarts: a History. She informed me, luckily before I tried, that there are wards which are designed to not only prevent magical spying but even identify whoever spies in there.”

Since the marauder’s map only informed about the location of people, it didn’t trip those wards, but Ian and David never knew about that map.

 

“How do you like Arithmancy?” Ian suddenly asked, both as a way to change the subject and as a way to drop a hint that David needed to go to that lesson since it would begin shortly after.

“Honestly”, David replied (not noticing the hint), “I still don’t have a clue what it’s about. If Ellen didn’t help with my homework I would have been thrown out of that class ages ago.”

“Since you didn’t take the hint”, Ian replied, “you should be there in about two minutes.”

David quickly rushed away, Ian continued his way to the library.

 

In the library, Ian quickly searched and found the book professor Babbling had advised him to consult while translating his spellbook. Afterwards he took both that book and his spellbook and began working. The spell he was trying to decipher wasn’t actually a spell an sich, but more like a web. At least if Ian’s translation was correct, which according to professor Babbling was the case. Although she wasn’t that good in spellwork (which was why she had advised Ian to ask professor Banning’s help if he would succeed in deciphering the spell). According to what he already knew, other spells could be attached to the web, allowing the caster to detect people. Or if you actually wanted even to make a lot of noise when people were near. Ian was quite sure such a spell could come in handy if he ever managed to become an auror.

 

“What kind of spell is that”, someone suddenly asked. Ian looked up and noticed Ravenclaw student Fiona and her Gryffindor friend Tamara.

“As far as I have managed to translate it”, Ian responded, “it is the basis for a layered spellweb. To which you could potentially attach a lot of other spells, allowing you to detect other persons or even one very specific person.”

“Why do you even want to know such a spell?” Tamara asked, “it’s not as if you would ever need it.”

“It could be a handy tool for an auror”, Fiona mentioned.

Ian at this moment had no idea Fiona’s mother was an auror, but he was glad at least the Ravenclaw student understood the purpose.

“Exactly”, Ian agreed.

Tamara pulled Fiona away, although the last one would have seen no problem in staying. Ian continued with his work.

 

**Mary**

“Have you read the notice”, Melia asked when Mary was back from quidditch practice, “we have to choose our optional courses by the end of this week.”

Mary looked at the notice. “they must have hung it up during quidditch training”, Mary replied, “it wasn’t there this morning. Do you already know what you will choose?”

“I’m not sure yet”, Melia answered, “I am reasonably sure about Ancient Runes and Arithmancy, but I am thinking to add a third subject. Although I’m not sure which one.”

 

“I might join you in Arithmancy, but I’ve seen the Ancient Runes books Ian has and they don’t really look that interesting to me”, Mary replied, “I think I want to take Muggle Studies. I’ve heard about the technology they have and some of it could really help us as well.”

“Why not”, Melia decided, “I’ll join you in Muggle Studies. Are you sticking with two courses?”

Mary thought for a while. “Care of Magical Creatures does sound like fun”, Mary mentioned.

“You would really choose a course for that reason wouldn’t you”, Melia teased her friend.

“And why not”, Mary answered, “I have decided, I will follow those courses.”

 

“Which courses?” Roger Davies suddenly asked.

Melia repressed a sigh, ever since their match against Gryffindor, Mary acted ... well, every time Roger Davies came near, she acted like a twelve year old with a crush (of which Roger Davies remained blissfully ignorant, although he probably was the only one).

“Arithmancy, Muggle Studies and Care of Magical Creatures”, Mary finally answered (after Melia had rolled her eyes and kicked her under the table).

“Cool”, Roger answered, “I think I will following Arithmancy and Magical Creatures as well.” Roger didn’t notice Mary’s smile becoming brighter.

 

“You do know that it’s possible to actually tell a guy you like him”, Melia mentioned when Roger Davies had left them, “although I can’t fathom what you see in him.”

“I don’t like Davies”, Mary replied indignated. Although Mary’s blush kind of conflicted with her statement, Melia decided not to continue the topic of conversation at the moment.

 

**Ian**

The Slytherin Common Room was for once quite lively, Slytherin’s team had crushed Gryffindor by 210 to 40 (although to be fair: the snitch literally flew into the right sleeve of Slytherin’s seeker). Since this victory basically meant that after Hufflepuff, Gryffindor was also out of the race. Except if they would win with a 240 points lead against Hufflepuff, which would be unlikely (Hufflepuff had a decent team after all).

 

While Slytherin as a whole was quite happy, the same couldn’t be said about Ian, who was quite annoyed about all the fuss about a stupid game (which would be Ian’s opinion).

It was then that David came towards Ian, “I’ve heard Flint speaking about Mary. He said she is a dangerous adversary and wants someone to ambush her before the next match.”

 

Ian didn’t waste time and stormed towards Marcus Flint, wand in hand.

“I only warn you this once”, Ian threatened, “you lay even one of your filthy sasanach hands on my sister and you can be assured that I’ll curse you in a way that you’d be unable to even walk. Let alone fly on your bloody broom.”

“You’re only a third year student”, Marcus Flint sneered, “you wouldn’t be able to.”

“Do test that theory”, Ian replied before walking away.

 

Although Ian was convinced his threat would be sufficient to keep Flint in check, he still decided to warn Mary as well. He left the dungeons and headed towards the Ravenclaw tower, the odds of him meeting a Ravenclaw student who could deliver the warning were rather high. Ian actually managed to find a Ravenclaw student, captain Ianto Jones even, quite fast. When he was certain no one else was around, he approached him. Ianto was of course on his guard, it wouldn’t be the first time that someone would try to ambush a seeker.

 

“I want you to warn my sister”, Ian began, “that would be Mary O’Connor. One of my friends heard Marcus Flint saying that she was a dangerous player and should be ambushed in the corridors.”

“Did they plan something with the rest of us as well?” Ianto asked after he processed Ian’s original sentence.

“I have no idea”, Ian replied honestly, “I actually couldn’t care less about quidditch. The only reason I even heard about Mary was because David told me.”

 

**Mary**

Mary was actually relieved that the quidditch match Ravenclaw vs Slytherin was about to begin. After Ianto had been warned by Ian, no team member had been allowed to walk around alone, which Mary was beginning to find quite annoying.

Now however, the team was assembled in their blue and bronze quidditch robes and Ianto Jones gave them his final orders, “Mary and Clay, our chasers will have to fend for themselves, I want you to keep the bludgers away from me and against my Slytherin counterpart. The rest of you know what to do. And everyone, be alert. We may have a 70 points lead on Slytherin, but the victory is not secure yet.”

 

“Welcome to the final match of the quidditch cup. Will Ianto Jones’ Ravenclaw also win his third and final cup or will Slytherin break his winning streak?”

This became, by far, Mary’s roughest match up to date. Once again, Mary blocked a bludger heading for Ianto and slammed it right into Hamish Macdonald, the Slytherin seeker.

Almost directly afterwards, Lee Jordan announced, “Macdonald is diving, it looks like he has spotted the snitch. No wait, he’s not diving. He’s falling.”

Mary looked towards the fallen seeker (luckily for him, Madam Hooch had managed to cushion his fall).

“Hamish Macdonald is unable to continue, leaving Slytherin without a seeker”, Lee Jordan announced a few minutes later.

 

The Slytherin beaters, seeking revenge, now focused all their efforts against Mary.

“I will handle their beaters”, Mary yelled towards Clay, “you just hinder the Slytherin chasers as much as possible.”

The match had now become even rougher. The balance had however clearly swung towards Ravenclaw. While Slytherin’s chasers were earlier quite capable in holding their ground against Ravenclaw. The loss of their seeker devastated the Slytherin team. They knew quite well they could never score 230 points more than Ravenclaw, which would be required to win the cup if Ianto would capture the snitch. The knowledge that a victory was cleanly in their grasp however did wonders for the Ravenclaw chasers. When Ianto finally captured the snitch, ending the match, most Slytherin students were actually relieved they had only lost 250 to 40 (which still placed them before Gryffindor and Hufflepuff in the final ranking).

 

**Ian**

“What question did she give you?” Ellen asked Ian after he also left Burbage’s office having had his Muggle Studies exam.

“She asked me to give the, in my opinion, most important muggle invention from the last 100 years and defend my choice”, Ian answered.

“Let me guess”, David responded, “you told her it was that nuclite bomb.”

“It’s nuclear bomb and actually I didn’t”, Ian replied, “I told her it was that computer thing she told us about last month. Anyhow, when do you have your Arithmancy exam?”

“In two days”, Ellen replied.

“Then good luck with it”, Ian now told his friends, Muggle Studies had been Ian’s last exam.

 

A few corridors further, Ian heard muttering from a classroom. Curiously, he decided to listen what it was all about. “What if we switch flobberworm mucus in the wiggenweld recipe with murtlap tentacle?” one of the two voices asked.

“Good plan”, the other agreed, “that might do the trick.”

Ian would normally have kept himself away from such situations, but he saw no other choice. Ian pushed open the door, “there are easier ways to blow up your kettle you know.”

Then he noticed the two were Gryffindors (basically Fred and George) and he decided to continue, “but if you don’t take my word for it, then you might as well go ahead.”

 

Ian left the classroom, leaving the Weasley twin a bit flabbergasted (yes, they thought it prudent to accept Ian’s claim as a fact, which it actually was). He left for the library, the spell-web he was translating was almost completely translated after all. He might even finish that day. Quickly Ian rushed to the library and began working, it’s not as if he had anything better to do. A couple of hours later, Ian was ready. Without testing, he would never know how it worked however.

 

Ian decided to ask professor Flitwick for permission to set up the web in an abandoned corridor, the professor had after all expressed interest in the spell-web. Ian ran towards the staffroom in the hope of Flitwick being there.

Ian knocked on the door, professor McGonagall opened the door, “mr. O’Connor, what brings you here?”

“I would like to speak to professor Flitwick if he is there”, Ian replied.

McGonagall called her colleague, Flitwick decided he would certainly like to see whether it actually worked.

 

Flitwick lead the way to an almost unused corridor on the third floor (yes, that one). At the corridor, Ian took the parchment with the enchantment.

“Quite an ingenious piece of magic”, Flitwick remarked after reading the enchantment, “I suggest we lay the web halfway this corridor, we should be noticed if anyone crosses here that way.”

Ian and Flitwick began laying the gaelic spell-web, half an hour later they finished.

“Now it’s only waiting until anyone passes through this corridor”, Ian remarked.

“True”, Flitwick agreed, “almost forgotten, you’ve passed your Charms exam.”

“Thanks professor”, Ian answered before taking his leave.

 

**Mary**

“I passed all my exams”, Mary gleefully shouted to everyone willing to listen (knocking out the Slytherin seeker in the quidditch final helped in that regard at that).

“Thanks Ianto”, Mary told her captain after a while (he had been the one to arrange the permission for the Ravenclaw quidditch team to study in the library after closing time after all, which was probably the main reason Mary succeeded in passing her exams even with her busy quidditch schedule).

Later, Mary sat around with her Gryffindor friends. Fred and George might be the beaters of an other team, but when not on the quidditch field, they could often be found talking to each other.

“What did you say they were calling me?” Mary asked the twins.

“Knock ‘m out Mary”, George answered.

“Cool name”, Mary grinned, “you must be so jealous now.”

“We still have more than enough time to make a name for ourselves”, Fred replied, clearly planning something.

Mary wisely decided she didn't want to know and left the Twins to handle it themselves, she decided to look for Melia instead (the main reason she had gone outside to sit with the Weasley twins, was because she hadn't been able to find her best friend Melia before.

Eventually she did find her though, for some reason Melia was once again in the libary, "you do know that the exams are over do you?"

"Of course I do", Melia replied, "I just like it here."

"You would", Mary joked, she stayed with her friend nonetheless though.

  
That year, Fred and George turned out to be the first students ever to get a detention on the last day of school. Mary was a bit sad the year had ended so fast, but she knew the next year could only be even better, not?


	4. Fourth Year (1991-1992)

**Mary**

Mary had become even more fanatical about quidditch. apparently her literally knocking Slytherin’s seeker of his broom had caught Gwenog Jones’ attention (Mary’s ex-captain was after all her younger brother), who had invited her to the yearly Holyhead Quidditch Camp. Each year, the Holyhead Harpies invited talented young witches from all over Europe to spend a summer training with them.

 

“It was an honour”, Mary told Gwenog at the end of the summer camp, “I can’t wait to use the techniques you’ve learned us. The other teams don’t stand a chance this year.”

 

“As long as you keep up to your nickname”, Gwenog replied, “they surely won’t.”

 

After having promised her new friends she would write to them, Mary entered the hearth and left homewards.

 

**Ian**

 

“Did you hear Ian?” David asked as he entered their cabin (like the previous years, David, Ellen and Ian had decided to share a cabin), “professor Quirrel has returned, apparently he will teach Defense against the Dark Arts this year.”

 

“What happened to professor Jackson?” Ian asked, the teacher from last year had been an eccentric Texan wizard.

 

“He has been appointed the new Director of FALM”, Ellen knew.

 

“That’s a shame”, Ian supposed, “he was cool. And a former auror at that.” The Americans might call their version of aurors Federal Agents instead of aurors, but in essence there wasn’t much of a difference.

  
  


This year had Harry Potter joining hogwarts, not entirely unexpected, he was put into Gryffindor. Ian quickly became annoyed by one of the new Slytherins, a blonde brat named Draco Malfoy. Who kept telling everyone who could hear him, that with him as seeker, Slytherin would never again lose a match.

 

“Ian”, David remarked just loud enough for Malfoy to understand it as well, “if that brat ever gets in our team, do ask your sister to do a Hamish on him.”

 

“His sister is the Ravenclaw beater who knocked out Hamish MacDonald in last year’s quidditch final”, Ellen helpfully told Malfoy.

 

Ian might not like Quidditch, but even he liked hearing stories of his sister knocking someone out of the sky. He liked it even better when Malfoy, and the two simpletons accompanying him for some reason, moved away from them.

 

**Mary**

“Welcome to the second match of the year”, Lee Jordan announced, “Hufflepuff vs Ravenclaw. Ravenclaw having lost last year’s captain and seeker, might be at a disadvantage this year.”

 

“Not if I have anything to do with it”, Mary remarked softly, not that anyone heard her.

 

“Let’s see how the young Cho Chang faces as Ravenclaw’s new seeker”, Lee Jordan continued, “the snitch has been let loose and the whistle is blown.”

 

“It seems Knock ’m out Mary is keeping up with her reputation”, Lee Jordan remarked, after Mary had singlehandedly cleared the way for Roger Davies to fly towards the Hufflepuff hoops and score the first points of the match. “ten-zero for Ravenclaw.”

 

The match went on, right until Lee Jordan announced, “Sean Mackenzie has caught the snitch, hufflepuff wins by 160 to 90.”

 

Ravenclaw might have been the better team, but it hadn’t helped them this time.

 

**Ian**

 

“Seventeen inches on the creative use of spellwork in a duel”, Ian remarked, “that can’t be too difficult can it?”

 

“It’s probably the most interesting task we have had for professor Quirrell thus far”, Ellen replied, “I’m actually somewhat disappointed. Do you have any ideas?”

 

“Maybe using spells indirectly”, Ian suggested, “like using accio on an object behind your opponent, flinging it against his back.”

 

“To top that off”, David suggested, “you could use a banishment spell to fling it against your opponent a second time, making use of the fact he would still be effected by having something slammed against his back.”

 

“That could be dangerous”, Ellen remarked, “just see.” Ellen took a couple of gobstones, laid them down on her right hand and pointed her wand at it (she was a leftie). Making sure no one stood between her and the wall, she yelled a banishing spell. This launched the stones at the wall at a tremendous speed, destroying the gobstones and denting the walls. “Like I said”, Ellen smugly stated, “those spells can be lethal.”

  
  


“You destroyed my gobstones”, the annoying first year Draco interrupted them, “I’ll tell my father.”

 

“Just cast a reparo on them and they will be good as new”, Ellen dismissed the boy, “unless you haven’t even learned such a basic spell.”

 

Draco clearly didn’t want to admit not knowing reparo and suddenly remembering that as the daughter of a foreign MInister of Magic, Ellen was unlikely to be all too impressed by his father, haughtily walked away. If he had been a bit less annoying, Daphne Greengrass or one of the other students who knew reparo would probably have helped him. But at the moment, the only ones he could bully into obedience (aided by his sidekicks) were fellow first years, of whom Daphne Greengrass was the only one to know the reparo charm.

 

“With that over”, Ellen turned back to the homework, “where were we?”

 

**Mary**

 

“I thought we would learn about magical creatures”, Mary exclaimed, “those are horses.””

 

“I didn’t know they could have that colour”, Roger Davies added.

 

“They are indeed gold coloured”, professor Kettleburn remarked, clearly having heard the conversation, “but I’m afraid your initial reaction was incorrect, what we have here are unicorn foals. The reason we use foals in this lesson is due to the fact that adult unicorns prefer a woman’s touch. The young don’t care that much. You can approach them.”

  
  


The class approached the young unicorns.

  
  


“This lesson”, the professor continued, “we are going to brush the unicorn foals and collect the hair which will stuck on the brushes.”

 

“How come they are gold coloured?” Mary couldn’t help herself asking, “I thought unicorns were white.”

 

“They are born in this colour”, the professor replied, “they will start changing colour when they are around two years old. You can already see the first white hairs growing on them if you watch closely enough. At the age of four, the horn will start growing. Does anyone know what unicorn hair can be used for?”

 

Mary raised her hand and immediately answered, “they can be used as wand core. Although I’ve heard saying it can make a melancholy wand, whatever that means. They are also used in various potions, such as in most potent lovepotions.”

 

“Entirely correct”, professor Kettleburn replied, “ten points to Ravenclaw. One remark though, as the hairs we will be gathering are from foals, they won’t be as powerful as the hair of an adult. This doesn’t mean you can’t use it in potions, you just need more hairs, it does mean that it wouldn’t make a good wand core.”

 

**Ian**

 

It didn’t take long for the news to spread across Hogwarts, Quirrell had apparently been trying to capture the Philosopher's Stone, which had been hidden in Hogwarts all this time. Not that Ian and his friends had that much time to think about it, the exams were near after all. Yes, there would still be a few weeks before they started, but as fourth year students, they still had quite a lot of work.

 

The Malfoy boy didn’t seem to realise this though, as he kept on repeating the same crap he was always repeating. At the end, Ian couldn’t hold it any longer and approached him. “I don’t give a rat’s ass about your feelings for Potter”, he said, “but if you don’t shut your mouth this instance, I will curse it shut. Understood Malloy.”

 

The threat proved sufficient to finally shut the annoying git up. Especially given the fact that the fifth and seventh year students seemed more likely to stand with Ian then with Malfoy, then again, they had O.W.L.s  and N.E.W.T.s. He didn’t even reply to Ian calling him Malloy instead of Malfoy.

 

**Mary**

 

Tonight was the Ravenclaw vs. Gryffindor match, normally Mary would look forward to it, but not this time. “A shame we couldn’t move the match”, Mary voiced what several of her teammates also thought, “Gryffindor probably has the best team they have ever had, but without their seeker ...”

 

“I know”, keeper Sean Mallory, the sixth year student who had taken over as team captain from Ianto Jones (who had finished his N.E.W.T. year the previous year), replied, “Wood and I went to madam Hooch trying to convince her to reschedule the match, but she said there simply isn’t any room for rescheduling. I suggested Wood to let it be written down as a draw, but he said no.”

  
  


The teams entered the stadium, seven in blue and bronze, six in red and gold.

 

“With Gryffindor’s seeker out of commision”, Lee Jordan began, “it’s a grim prospect for the Gryffindor team.”

 

Mary looked at her friends in the opposing team, everyone of them indicating they would give it all they had and that they expected her to do the same.

 

“In a spirit of sportsmanship, captain Mallory of the Ravenclaw team had earlier offered Wood to have this match recorded as a draw, captain Wood has decided to play the match nonetheless.”

 

The match began, it was obvious that both teams would have been a close match, having to play without their seeker did damage the Gryffindor moral though. When at the end, the match was ended with 270 points against a mere 20, the Gryffindors seemed almost relieved they hadn’t been defeated worse. It was probably the least enjoyable match Mary had ever flown.

 

“Why couldn’t Wood simply accept a draw?” Mary cursed.

 

“I don’t think the other two teams would have allowed it”, Fred or George, having heard it, replied, “you know as well as I do that with a draw, Gryffindor would have won the Quidditch Cup.”

 

“What do the other teams have to do with it”, Mary retorted, “now we won and we didn’t even deserve it.”

 

“Slytherin knows that with a draw, we would win the House Cup”, the other twin replied, “that’s why they would object, they’d rather have anyone else win but us. Hufflepuff might have been less inclined to object though.”

 

“I can promise you this”, Mary decided, “next year we will win fair and square.”

 

“Bring it on O’Connor”, the first of the twins replied before the twins returned to the rest of their team.

 

**Ian**

 

For obvious reasons, the Defense exam didn’t take place that year, apart from the O.W.L. and N.E.W.T. exams that is. The other exams gave Ian and his friends more than enough work though, at the end he was still quite convinced he had passed all his exams.

 

Ian was proved right when the results finally came in, so he was quite happy when he entered the Great Hall for the End of Year Feast. He was also quite proud of having done his part in securing the House Cup for his House. Which was before professor Dumbledore began handing out points to various Gryffindors at that. At the end, Ian was still hesitating whether he should be displeased or he should laugh at Malfoy’s face.

 

“What Potter did was impressive”, Ian supposed, “let them have their victory this time.”

  
“You’re right”, Ellen replied. This time Ian and Ellen were probably the only Slytherins feeling that way, but neither really cared that much.


	5. Fifth year (1992 - 1993)

**Ian**

 

“Mary”, Ian yelled, “how would you like loads of detentions?”

 

“Huh”, was Mary’s reaction, not really understanding what Ian was getting at.

 

“I’ve been made prefect”, Ian clarified (not that there where that many Slytherin students in his year, it would always have been a choice between Ian or David), “obviously along with Ellen.” Ellen Geerts was the only female slytherin in their year.

 

“Cool”, Mary supposed, “congratulations.”

 

“Thanks sis”, Ian replied, before turning towards the booklist, “wow, who put all those Lockhart books on the list?”

 

It quickly became clear that the O’Connor’s would have no other choice than going to London this year. Their regular bookstore owner in Dublin had already informed them (quite literally), that it would rain in hell before he would ever sell such rubbish. “Those aren’t Defense books”, the shop owner added, “those are books written by an idiot wanting to make a name for himself. If he ever did anything in there, I’ll eat my stock.”

  
  


Back home, Ian send out his owl Morrigan to his friends. A few days later he received word that both Ellen and David would be in London the following Saturday, Ian’s parents spoke for a while, but at the end it was decided, Ian, Mary and their mother would be in London next Saturday.

  
  


The Leaky Cauldron was a bit more crowded than usual (not that Ian or Mary had anything to compare it with, having done their shopping in Dublin the previous years). They quickly found Ellen and David sitting at one of the tables.

 

As they approached the table, two imposing wizards (and a less imposing witch) seemed to tense a bit, at least until Ellen indicated Ian and his family were friends.

 

“Sorry about that”, Ellen told Ian, “they are just doing their jobs.”

 

“Of course”, Ian realized as he turned towards the two wizards and witches, “you’re aurors aren’t you?”

 

The witch seemed to hesitate whether she should respond, but at the end one of her colleagues indicated it was all right. “It’s not as if there is any imminent danger”, auror Shacklebolt decided, “if he’s interested, you might as well answer some questions.”

  
  


The witch didn’t let that be said twice and sat down at the table. “Kingsley Shacklebolt and John Dawlish are indeed aurors”, the witch replied, “I’m still under training however. The name is Tonks.”

 

“No last name?” Mary wondered, having decided to join them at the table as well.

 

“Tonks is my last name”, Tonks replied, “and I can assure you, if your mother would have given you my name, you would go by your family name as well.”

 

Given that Tonks’ name clearly was a sensitive subject (and Ian was actually interested in aurors), he decided to change the subject, “how do you become an auror? If you don’t mind me asking. I know which N.E.W.T.s you need, but I suppose there is more to it.”

 

“Quite a bit”, Tonks agreed, “first and foremost, you have to contact the Auror Department, requesting an internship. You will have to enclose a copy of your latest exam results. The next thing will be ...”

 

“I’m quite sure the rest aren’t very interested in it”, Shacklebolt interrupted, before turning to Ian, “just write down your name and address and I’ll be sure to have all the information you want send to you.”

  
  


Once on Diagon Alley itself, Mary immediately rushed away, dragging mother behind her, all the way to the quidditch store. The others decided to hit the bookstore first (even if just because of the fact that Ian already had everything else).

 

Once inside, it became clear that the aurors shared the Dublin shopkeeper’s opinion on Lockhart’s books. “I don’t know who will be teaching you this year”, Shacklebolt couldn’t help remarking, “but if those books are any indication, then I suggest you take these books as well.” Shacklebolt indicated 2 thick works on Defense against the Dark Arts. “At least those books will actually help you in passing your O.W.L.s”, the auror explained.

 

“Thank you”, Ian replied, “I think I will.” Ellen and David decided to buy the books as well.

  
  


After they had paid for their books (Ian had bought Mary’s set as well), the friends headed towards Florean Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlour. Which was were Ellen first noticed. “Weren’t you a blonde earlier?” she asked Tonks.

 

“It didn’t suit me”, Tonks replied, before deciding, “this red hair needs freckles under it.” Tonks promptly gave herself a light complexion with freckles.

 

“We’re working Nymphadora Tonks”, Shacklebolt interrupted, the use of Tonks’ first name was a clear indication of the fact that he was not amused, “unless you want a mark against you, I suggest you stop playing with your appearance.”

 

“It won’t happen again sir”, Tonks replied.”

 

**Mary**

 

Mary was glad she had been able to convince her mother to buy her a new beater bat, a broom servicing kit and a practice bludger (which could be used to train her beating skills at home, the muggle repelling charms around their property should make sure the bludger wouldn’t be spotted by muggles).

 

She had taken a look at the new Nimbus 2001, but she remembered Gwenog Jones’ advice (she had taken part in a quidditch summer camp organised by the Holyhead Harpies the previous year). Gwenog Jones had clearly said that in her opinion, the Nimbus series, while good brooms for a chaser or a seeker, where everything but for a beater. Gwenog Jones preferred the use of a Cleansweep (such as Mary’s Cleansweep Seven), they might be less fast, but they were much more stabile.

 

Mary was still quite glad with her new beater bat when she and mother met up with her brother once again. The aurors were still following them (well in fact they were just following Ellen), but they had at least started to relax somewhat around Ian and David.

 

**Ian**

 

After having spent a few days at David’s home (his parents had invited Ian and his family to come over, given the fact that next Tuesday would be the 1th of September already), the O’Connors, David and his little sister (who would be starting that year) and Ellen reached perron 9 3/4. Ellen was still followed around by the aurors, although they made an effort to blend in more. If Ian didn’t know better, than he would almost have thought trainee Tonks to be an older sister to Ellen, not that the appearance of a metamorphmagus said that much.

 

“Can you thank auror Shacklebolt for me”, Ian told Tonks before he and his friends entered the train, “the brochure he send me was very helpful.”

 

“I will”, Tonks promised, before turning to her charge, “miss Geerts, you’re on your own from now on, good luck.”

 

Usually, Ian and his friends would sit together during the ride to Hogwarts, but as 2 out of three had been made prefect this year, it wouldn’t be that simple this time. Ellen and Ian would have to patrol the train later on for one.

 

“I’m afraid we will have to meet up with the other prefects and the headboy and headgirl”, Ellen apologized to David.

 

“I’ll survive”, David replied, “I’ll just start reading one of the books your aurors suggested.”

 

**Mary**

 

Mary didn’t have much problems locating the twins, mainly due to the fact that they caused an explosion in their compartment.

 

“So apart from the second best beater in Hogwarts”, Mary remarked as she entered, “you are also decent in blowing stuff up.” She did make it quite vague as to which of the twin brothers she addressed.

 

“I think she’s talking to you Fred”, Fred said, the grin kind of gave away that Fred and George were once again impersonating each other.

 

This started a small (not entirely serious) argument on who actually was the best beater currently in the compartment.

 

“We could let Lee judge”, Fred suggested.

 

“Wouldn’t be fair”, Mary countered, “everyone knows he fancies me.” Mary ignored Lee’s objections and continued, “he even called me a knock-out during a match, which says a lot.” In fact the nickname actually came from when Mary had quite literally knocked Slytherin’s seeker from his broom during her first match against Slytherin, but still. Given that the compartment was almost entirely filled with the Gryffindor Quidditch team, Mary decided to search for her friend Melia McKinnon.

  
  


“How was your summer Melia?” Mary asked entering the compartment.

 

“It was quite alright I suppose”, Melia replied, before turning to another subject, “did you hear who will be teaching this year?”

 

“I only know he or she let us order all those Lockhart books”, Mary replied.

 

“If you can belief it”, Melia continued, not noticing Mary’s less than excited reaction, “we will have none less than Gilderoy Lockhart as a professor.”

 

“That explains the Lockhart books”, Mary supposed, “auror Shacklebolt and the bookshop owner in Dublin did call the books rubbish though.

 

“Where did you meet an auror”, Melia wondered a bit surprised about the reaction.

 

“You know Ellen?” Mary replied, “fifth year student, Slytherin.”

 

“The one from Belgium”, Melia remembered, foreign students were quite rare after all.

 

“Indeed”, Mary continued, “her father is the Belgian Minister of Magic, which is why our Ministry provided a couple of aurors as security during her shopping trip in Diagon Alley. One of them said he considered the books completely useless. The Dublin shopkeeper even went a bit farther, he said that if Lockhart actually did anything he wrote about, he would eat his stock.”

 

“He can’t be that bad”, Melia objected, “professor Dumbledore wouldn’t hire him otherwise.”

 

“Considering what happened to his predecessor”, Mary retorted, “I don’t think he had other options.”

 

**Ian**

 

“Elizabeth” Ian addressed David’s sister when he noticed she had followed them to the carriages, “I’m afraid the first year students are supposed to go with Hagrid, the really big man over there.”

 

Elizabeth murmured something in reply, when she noticed Ian hadn’t understood it, she said a bit louder, “he looks scary.”

 

“Hagrid wouldn’t hurt a fly”, Ian assured her, “I’ll walk with you.”

 

After having convinced Elizabeth Stiles to join the other first year students, Ian entered one of the carriages.

  
  


Once in the Great Hall, it was simply waiting for the First Years to enter. After the hat had sung its newest composition, McGonagall started calling the names of the new students.

 

“Lovegood Luna”, McGonagall said halfway through the list.

 

Luna Lovegood looked dreamily around before putting on the hat. “Ravenclaw”, the hat eventually stated, less sure of itself than usual somehow.

 

“I wonder what she said to the hat”, David grinned, never having known the hat to lose its composure before.

 

When David’s sister, Elizabeth Stiles was called forward, she hesitated somewhat. David decided to cheer her on. Which made McGonagall frown in his direction, causing him to stop again. This did make Elizabeth laugh somewhat as she finally put on the hat.

 

“Hufflepuff”, the hat yelled a few seconds later, which caused a round of applause at the Hufflepuff table (along with David, Ian and Ellen who clapped as well).

 

With Ginny Weasley, who went to Gryffindor, the sorting came to its conclusion.

  
  


When the Feast was over, Ian stood up and began rounding up the new first year Slytherins, “first years, follow me.” It took a while, but eventually Ian had all the new Slytherins together.

 

Apart from Malfoy and his cronies blocking the way out of the Great Hall (up until both Percy Weasley and Ellen Geerts gave them detentions that is), there were no problems in delivering the new students outside the Slytherin Common Room.

 

“It is easy to get in”, Ian explained, “you just have to say the password, and the door will open.”

 

“Maybe you could start by giving the password”, Malfoy sneered, having caught up.

 

“Another detention it is Malfoy”, Ian replied, “I’ll make sure Filch supervises it.” Then he turned back towards the first years, “the password this week is Snakeskin. Go on James.”

 

One of the new first years, James Elliott approached the door and clearly said, “Snakeskin.” The door opened.

 

Ian lead the first years in before explaining a bit more, “each Sunday, you will be able to find the password for the following week over there.” Ian indicated a messageboard near the entrance. “You will also find your timetables on the messageboard”, Ian continued, “just take them off.”

 

Ellen approached, “girls, follow me.”

 

After the girls had followed Ellen, Ian took the boys with him. “You won’t be able to get inside the girls dormitory”, Ian explained, “but if you don’t want to take my word, do try.” Ian showed the students their new dormitory.

 

**Mary**

 

“Did you hear it”, captain Mallory entered the Ravenclaw Common Room, “the Malfoy boy has bought seven Nimbus 2001’s for the Slytherin team.”

 

“I did”, Mary replied, “I wouldn’t worry overmuch, according to Gwenog Jones, a Nimbus is entirely unsuited for a beater or keeper, due to a lack of proper balance.”

 

“That might be so”, captain Mallory replied, “but they are most certainly suitable for a chaser or seeker, as Potter already proved.”

 

“Do we even know who their new seeker is?” Cho Chang interrupted, “I mean it’s not as if Mary here can’t take out whoever it is.”

 

“The Malfoy boy”, Sean Mallory replied, “probably due to the fact he gave the team new brooms.”

 

“There you have it”, Cho supposed, “I’m not afraid of a boy who had to buy his place into his team.”

 

“Cho’s right”, Fiona Dragonheart, one of the Ravenclaw chasers, added, “you know we are the better team. An excellent keeper, a wonderful seeker ...”

 

“The deadliest witch on a broom”, Roger Davies interrupted.

 

“That as well”, Fiona agreed, “all by all, I don’t think we should fear the Slytherin team. They might have faster brooms, but it is the rider who makes a good player.”

 

**Ian**

 

“The Chamber of Secrets has been opened”, Draco Malfoy sneered, “Enemies of the Heir beware. You’ll be next mudbloods.”

 

“Shall we give him a detention?” Ian asked Ellen.

 

“Why not”, Ellen agreed.

 

Before they could actually give the detention, Filch had arrived, a few teachers right after him. For a moment Ian felt bad about Filch for the attack on his cat, but the feeling left quite fast. For one, the cat was only petrified, not dead, and for two, he didn’t particularly like the damn beast anyhow.

 

Eventually the students started to disperse, Ian and Ellen quickly found Malfoy nonetheless. “I can assure you that as a prefect we don’t tolerate such foul mouthedness”, Ian informed Malfoy, “which is why Ellen and I have decided to give you a double detention, you can start by assisting Filch in trying to get that message removed from the wall. Without using magic.”

 

“On Saturday”, Ellen continued, “you have your second detention with professor Lockhart.” Ellen had already discovered how easy it was to convince Lockhart to do things for you if your father was a Minister of Magic.

 

After Malfoy had left (in a foul mood at that), Ellen did have some reservations. “Maybe we shouldn’t keep giving him detentions”, she supposed, “Flint has already complained that Malfoy needs more time to train.”

 

“Don’t bother about that”, David interrupted, “I heard some of the other players grumbling about Malfoy, most already have second thoughts about him being seeker. They just don’t say it to his face or to Flint, because they fear Draco’s father. And he is a git.”

 

**Mary**

 

The first match of the season proved Cho’s suspicions, as Draco Malfoy had proven to be wholly unsuited for the position of seeker. Even with the rogue bludger in play, Draco somehow managed to miss the snitch while it was right in front of him.

 

When Gryffindor first year Colin Creevey was found petrified the night after the match, the Ravenclaw dormitory was quickly filled with nearly every single copy of Hogwarts: a History. Much to the chagrin of the students in other houses.

 

“It must be a Slytherin student”, was the general theory in Ravenclaw.

 

“I know at least three persons who aren’t it”, Mary remarked, “my brother doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the amount of muggles in someone’s ancestry, Ellen Geerts  isn’t even British and David Stiles is hardly ever away from Ellen.”

 

“The Malfoy boy did seem elated about it all”, someone remarked.

 

“I doubt he has the time”, someone else replied, “I’ve heard he spends most of his time in detention. Given by a Slytherin prefect if you can believe it.”

 

“Both the new Slytherin prefects actually”, Mary knew, “my brother considers him an annoying git, Ellen agrees with him.”

 

**Ian**

 

“You didn’t”, Ian was quite surprised about his friend’s action, “I know he’s a git, but to curse him like that.”

 

“I’m only doing Flint a favor”, David replied (he did make sure his girlfriend Ellen wasn’t near as she would probably frown upon it, she might even give her own boyfriend a detention over it), “with the Malfoy boy out of the picture he might be persuaded to replace him with someone who can actually fly.”

 

While Ian wasn’t entirely convinced on the reason behind it, mostly due to the fact that he didn’t give a rat’s ass about quidditch, he couldn’t help being amused. “At least we can find out whether that curse actually works”, Ian supposed.

 

The curse in question was one he had found in one of his Irish spellbooks, it basically made sure the target would continually start vomiting while within a certain distance from an object. David had connected the curse to Malfoy’s broom (and the other Nimbus 2001’s in the team as well). Due to the obscurity of the spell, there was a reasonable chance it wouldn’t be broken when their team would have to play the next match. As Ian could truthfully deny having cursed the git, he decided to leave it at that.

 

They continued on to the Great Hall, where a first meeting for a new Duelling Club would take place. At the Great Hall, Ellen joined up with them.

 

To nearly everyone’s disappointment, it turned out Lockhart would be leading the Club. At least he was helped by Snape, who could actually duel.

 

After Lockhart had been mercilessly beaten by Snape (who had only used a simple Expelliarmus at that), They were divided into groups. Ian was partnered with Gryffindor fifth year Tamara Primrose, Ellen with Ravenclaw fifth year Fiona Dragonheart and David with one of the Hufflepuffs.

 

Ian waited, eventually Tamara yelled, “Expelliarmus.” Which Ian countered with a protego. Each time either made a move, it was time and time again blocked. Eventually Ian didn’t use a duelling spell but a simple, “Accio!” Which smacked someone’s bag against Tamara’s back. Ian used the distraction to follow up with, “stupefy!”

 

“You have good reflexes”, Ian told Tamara after having used finite to counteract his stupefy.

 

“Using accio was quite smart”, Tamara admitted, she couldn’t help following this up with, “for a Slytherin.”

 

“The hat had almost put me in Ravenclaw you know”, Ian retorted.

  
  


The other duels didn’t go as smooth as Ian’s did though. Several students had hit each other with densaugeo’s, tarrantalegra’s and various other jinxes. A few hadn’t even used magic but had begun pummeling each other.

 

Snape now suggested to let the students train in blocking spells. Lockhart decided to put Harry Potter and Ron Weasley on the stand. Snape made sure Ron was replaced by Draco (Ian couldn’t really fault him, as Ron’s wand was a catastrophe waiting to happen).

 

Lockhart did try to teach Potter some kind of wand movement (culminating in throwing away his own wand), but Ian knew it didn’t even look like the wand movement for protego. It was clear that Potter was smart enough to have his doubts about the whole thing.

 

“Serpensortia”, Malfoy yelled, after which a snake appeared between him and Potter. Left on its own, the snake would probably have been quite happy to just remain where he was. Unfortunately Lockhart didn’t leave it alone and angered the snake. It was then that Potter approached the snake and started hissing at it. Potter had just succeeded in calming the snake once again, when Snape destroyed the snake.

 

“Interesting”, Ian supposed, “I’ve never seen a parselmouth before.”

 

“One of our Belgian aurors is one”, Ellen knew, “her family comes from a long line of Congolese parselmouths, I’ve never heard it being used before though.

  
  


A large portion of the school (in fact mostly comprised out of Hufflepuff students) had by now become convinced that Harry Potter himself was the Heir of Slytherin. In Slytherin though, no one actually believed it.

 

“He is friend with the mudblood Granger”, Draco exclaimed, “how stupid do you have to be to actually believe Potter is the Heir of Slytherin?”

 

“Of course it’s stupid”, Ian agreed, “which reminds me, I still don’t like people using such words, detention, Friday evening.”

 

“We have quidditch practice then”, Flint interrupted.

 

“Whatever”, Ian decided, “then your detention starts after your training.”

  
  
  


“At least it works”, Ian remarked that Friday, when it turned out Malfoy was indeed unable to reach any of the Nimbus 2001’s.

 

“It does”, David agreed, “although it would be even better if it came with a silencing charm.”

 

Eventually Ian got so annoyed he nonverbally undid the spell allowing Malfoy to approach the brooms once again.

 

**Mary**

 

In February, the mood at Hogwarts was on an all time low, due to the Heir still being at large, it didn’t stop quidditch though. After their victory against Hufflepuff, the Ravenclaw team felt ready to take the fight to Slytherin.

 

“Mallory has kept his winning team”, Lee Jordan began announcing, “let’s see how Ravenclaw fares against Slytherin’s new brooms.”

 

The game began. “O’Connor takes off with a vengeance and slams a bludger at Slytherin’s captain Marcus Flint”, Lee yelled, “that has to hurt! Davies has taken over the quaffle, he passes to Dragonheart, back to Davies. Did you see that, O’Connor has taken out Slytherin’s keeper.”

 

Marcus Flint now sent nearly his entire team against Mary, who simply waited until they were really close, before diving out of their way, which caused three of the Slytherin players to crash against each other. Since Cho had already told her and the other beater to ignore Malfoy and concentrate on attacking the Slytherin chasers. Mary wasted no time and slammed another bludger their way.

 

“The Slytherin beaters are completely outclassed by their  Ravenclaw counterparts”, Lee continued, “30 to zero for Ravenclaw! Wait, it looks like Malfoy has spotted the Snitch!”

 

Mary quickly slammed a bludger at Malfoy, who was forced to evade, thereby losing the snitch.

 

Eventually Cho Chang succeeded in grabbing the Snitch, ending the match at 190 to zero for Ravenclaw.

 

**Ian**

 

While the fear for the Heir was barely existent in Slytherin, their humiliating defeat against Ravenclaw made sure the mood in Slytherin was as bad as anywhere else. Not that Ian even cared about quidditch (and even if he would, it was Ian’s sister who, along with seeker Cho, had been instrumental during the match in ensuring a Ravenclaw victory), but the mood began to affect him as well. Then again, Ian had no problems with squibs or muggleborns in general (bar a few exceptions), which made sure he had problems with the whole petrifying them situation.

 

It did seem as if Ellen and Ian’s campaign of handing out detentions whenever they heard someone use the term mudblood was paying off. Hell, Snape had effectively ignored all objections to it, which was almost as good as him effectively endorsing it.

  
  


The strangest thing happening the last time, was when Malfoy’s cronies suddenly ran away out of the common room. If Ian didn’t know better, he would almost have thought one of them had his hair turning red.

 

When both returned later on, not remembering anything, Ian became somewhat suspicious. Combining that with Snape having complained about missing ingredients, it didn’t take long for Ian and his friends to find out someone had probably brewed polyjuice potion. Then again, the fact that he had had to write 20 inches about the potion for his potions homework probably had something to do with him finding out.

 

“Should we tell someone?” Ian asked his friends, “I mean, we are reasonably certain someone has made polyjuice potion, which is an impressive accomplishment at that. At least one of the persons having taken some, we know to be a redhead.”

 

“Any other time”, Ellen supposed, “I would have said, let’s go to professor Snape. But now? Whoever brewed it, probably wanted to speak to Malfoy, without him realizing. I mean, we know he was in detention during most of the attacks, but otherwise it makes sense for the Heir to be him. More than the Heir being Potter at least.”

 

Not entirely unexpected, David chose to support Ellen’s view. While Ian was still curious about who could pull off a polyjuice potion under everyone’s noses, he did agree not to go to a teacher.

 

**Mary**

 

Mary was still remembering what Ian had told her, at least Mary had been able to reply that she doubted it had been done by anyone in Ravenclaw, where it was considered highly unlikely for Malfoy to be the Heir. But she had promised to snoop around nonetheless. Another message had been from Ellen, apparently she had a message to be delivered to Potter. Something about a Belgian auror who would be contacting him.

 

Mary decided to make use of the Ravenclaw half of the Patil twin to pass that message on. While Mary truthfully informed Padma she had no idea why a foreign auror would contact Potter, Padma did promise to let Parvati pass on the message.

 

The elation about the victory against Slytherin hadn’t lingered long, the Heir had surely seen to that. Not only had a Hufflepuff second year, Gryffindor’s miss ‘should hope her hand would not remain stuck in that position’ Granger and Ravenclaw prefect Penelope Clearwater been petrified, the Heir had somehow managed to petrify the ghost of Nearly Headless Nick as well.

 

Entirely as expected, Ravenclaw house had begun scouring both the Ravenclaw library and the Hogwarts library for anything that could petrify things. The blonde first year who decided to search the Quibbler instead notwithstanding, someone should be able to find something, not?

  
  


“Do you actually think the monster in the Chamber of Secrets is a”, Mary quickly read the frontpage of the Magazine, “Crumple-Horned Snorkack?”

 

“Snorkacks can’t petrify people”, Luna replied, not even in the least insulted, “and it’s obvious what the monster is, isn’t it?”

 

“Would you mind indulging the rest of us with your answer?” Mary asked.

 

“Slytherin was a parselmouth”, Luna replied, “so an obvious monster would be a snake. A regular snake can’t petrify people, so it can only be a basilisk.”

 

“Those things are huge”, Mary objected, “wouldn’t anyone see it moving through the castle?”

 

Luna had no answer to that. Mary did decide she should inform one of the teachers about it the next day.

 

**Ian**

 

“I guess that answers much”, Ian realized, Harry Potter had just returned from killing a basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets, thereby saving young Ginny Weasley, “he or one of his friends made the polyjuice potion, I still want to know who though.”

 

“Who’s the best potioneer in your year?” Ian asked Daphne Greengrass in a hunch.

 

“Why do you want to know?” Daphne replied.

 

“I was just wondering about something, that’s it”, Ian replied.

 

“I’m not sure about the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws”, Daphne Greengrass informed Ian, “but during our class, I guess it would be Hermione Granger.”

 

Satisfied to finally have an answer on who had been brewing polyjuice potion, Ian returned to his studying. Yes, the regular exams had been cancelled, but O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s weren’t organized by Hogwarts itself.


	6. Sixth Year (1993 - 1994)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case anyone hasn't noticed, I chose to change a small bit in the quidditch cup (namely Draco being the worst seeker ever, making sure Slytherin never stood a chance on winning the cup in the first place)

**Ian**

 

Ian was a bit stressed about the results which had just come in, while he was quite certain he did quite well, he couldn’t help fearing the results wouldn’t be sufficient for him to take the N.E.W.T. lessons needed if he even wanted a chance of getting into the auror academy.

 

Eventually Ian did open the letter and began reading:

 

_Charms                                         O_

_Transfiguration                              EE_

_Herbology                                     EE_

_Defense against the Dark Arts     O_

_Ancient Runes                              O_

_Potions                                          O_

_Astronomy                                    A_

_History of Magic                           A_

_Muggle Studies                            O_

  
  


“As it is surprising for anyone even staying awake during his lessons”, Ian’s father remarked after having seen the list, “I don’t think you can complain about your A there. Do you already know which lessons you will take in your N.E.W.T. year?”

 

“I was thinking about dropping Astronomy and History”, Ian replied, “I need most of the others if I want to become an auror, Ancient Runes is quite handy there as well. Both for its use in warding (which they would start in the N.E.W.T. classes) as in deciphering those old spellbooks grandfather gave me. And Muggle Studies is genuinely interesting, which is why I want to continue that as well.”

 

“I had almost forgotten that”, Ian’s father laughed, “they do teach you some warding at Hogwarts, that’s true. But I wouldn’t hold your breath, your mother wouldn’t have any problem breaking any ward you would learn over there.” Ian’s father didn’t need to mention that as a professional warder, he would have even less problems.

 

Ian’s father went back inside and retrieved an old book from the family library, “if you are genuinely interested in warding, you could use this book. I won’t bother telling you not to share it with anyone, as I’ve placed a blood ward on it anyhow. You can find how to create one in the notes at the end.”

 

Ian gratefully accepted his own copy of the ‘O’Connor Family Tome on Warding and Cursebreaking’.

 

“If later on, you discover an ingenious ward or even create one”, Ian’s father concluded, “you can simply draw the scheme in the back of the book. As it is connected to my copy, I suggest you take the left pages and I the right pages. If I find something I think you can use, I’ll note it down.”

 

**Mary**

 

“Have they gone entirely insane”, Mary fulminated, “releasing dementors on a school train.”

 

Mary wasn’t the only one thinking along these lines. Both Weasley twins were quite furious, although that was mostly due to their young sister, who was still shaking after the dementors had left. Usually Mary would have chosen to sit with her friend Melia McKinnon, but Melia had been made prefect this year. The sight of the shaking Ginny did bring Mary out of her anger phase and made her remember anything she knew about dementors.

 

“Dementors suck all happiness out of people”, Mary was remembering, not aware that she spoke out loud, “they can be driven off by a patronus. But that won’t help us as I can’t perform it. Of course, chocolate.” Mary took her last chocolate frog and gave half of it to Ginny. “It should help somewhat”, Mary explained.

 

“We know”, Fred replied.

 

“You were thinking out loud”, George added.

 

A bit later, everyone in the compartment, about half the Gryffindor, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff quidditch teams were at this moment crammed inside the compartment, was eating chocolate (a few others had some stashed away as well). After a while, most returned to their own compartments, having only grouped together trying to get away from the dementors.

  
  


“That was horrible”, Roger Davies, the new captain of the Ravenclaw team, said, “and you’re completely right Mary, they’ve gone insane at the Ministry.”

 

The five remaining members of the Ravenclaw team (Mary’s fellow beater had graduated last year, so had their previous captain and keeper, Sean Mallory) stayed together the rest of the journey, only at the end, the boys left to let the girls change into their uniforms in peace.

 

**Ian**

 

Ian was already looking forward to his first Defense N.E.W.T. lesson. Already knowing it would most certainly be a vast improvement to Lockhart a year ago. It would also be nice knowing who in his year would be following which lessons at that.

 

Entering the classroom, along with Ellen and David, Ian recognized Gryffindor sixth year Tamara Primrose (who he had duelled with in the duelling club last year) and Fiona Dragonheart, Ian didn’t immediately recognize the two Hufflepuffs, nor the second Gryffindor witch. But he supposed he would learn their names soon enough.

 

“You may put away those books”, professor Lupin began as he entered the classroom as well, “my role here, is to prepare you for what you might expect in the N.E.W.T. examination next year. I had actually already planned out most of my lessons to accomplish this, but recent decisions have forced me to divert from my schedule. Yes miss?” Lupin saw Fiona had her hand up.

 

“I presume you are talking about the dementors stationed outside the school”, Fiona said, “does that mean you are going to teach us the Patronus charm?”

 

“It does”, Lupin replied, “10 points for Ravenclaw. Now, can anyone give me more information concerning the Patronus charm?”

 

“A patronus can be considered some kind of conjured guardian spirit, which can drive of dementors”, Ian answered, “it takes the form of an animal. I believe that in the case of animagi, their animal form and patronus animal are the same. I think I heard something about patronuses being used to send messages.”

 

“You are talking about a corporeal patronus”, Lupin replied, “I will be quite happy if you succeed in creating a mistform patronus, but in essence you are entirely correct. 15 points to Slytherin. And yes, it is possible to use a patronus to send messages, although you need a corporeal patronus to affect this.”

 

“Expecto Patronum”, Lupin yelled, after which he send his patronus (it looked a bit like a really big wolf) away with the following message, “professor Dumbledore, would you be so kind as to send back your own patronus with a message of your own?”

 

A few minutes later, a Phoenix patronus returned. “It’s no problem at all professor Lupin”, Dumbledore’s voice could be heard from the patronus.

 

“The advantage of messages like this”, Lupin explained, “is that they can’t be intercepted, if professor Dumbledore hadn’t intended for you to hear his reply as well, you wouldn’t have been able to hear it.”

  
  


Lupin slowly went through the wand movements, demonstrating them to his students. “While you say Expecto”, Lupin demonstrated, “you have your wand making a half circle, the lower half of a circle that is, starting at the left. Then you move your wand until it points right in front of you, saying, Patronum. But that’s the easy part, there is still one ingredient missing. You can articulate perfectly while performing equally perfect wand movements, but you won’t be able to conjure a Patronus without focussing on a happy thought.”

 

“But how can you think happy thoughts with a dementor sucking them away?” Ellen asked.

 

“Good question”, Lupin supposed, “your question leads to the very reason a Patronus is one of the most difficult charms to master. A corporeal Patronus can drive off a dementor, a mistform will only shield you from them. Both require you to keep on focussing on your happy thought though. Right now, what I want you to do, is to think about the happiest moment in your life, focus on it and then cast the charm.”

 

At the end of the lesson, no one had succeeded in conjuring even a mistform, but Lupin didn’t seem disappointed, “as homework, I want you to keep on practicing. Try different memories and see which one works best. I’ve arranged the empty classroom, next to this classroom to be kept available for my sixth and seventh year students to practice.”

  
  


“I must admit”, Ian supposed, “professor Lupin seems to know his stuff, which makes him a vast improvement over Lockhart at that.”

 

“He does”, David agreed, “one thing though, where did you learn all that about patronuses?”

 

“Shacklebolt”, Ian replied, “after he gave me that information packet about the auror academy, we’ve kept on sending letters.”

  
  


“Did you say Kingsley Shacklebolt?” Ravenclaw student Fiona Dragonheart interrupted.

 

“I did”, Ian confirmed, “do you know him?”

 

“Not personally”, Fiona replied, “but I’ve heard of him, he’s supposed to be one of the most experienced aurors around, I believe he’s even in charge of the hunt for Sirius Black.”

 

“I take it you know someone in the auror department”, Ian supposed, Ellen and David had already departed (in fact they had decided to check whether the Room of Requirements was empty, as they had some time left in between lessons).

 

“My mum is responsible over the recruitment”, Fiona replied, “which is why I was surprised to hear you received all that information from Shacklebolt.”

 

“I met him last year”, Ian explained, “he and his intern were temporarily assigned on the Foreign Dignitary Protection Unit at the time.”

 

“Who were guarding Ellen Geerts”, Fiona realized.

 

“Exactly”, Ian replied, “I suppose they wanted Tonks, the intern, to get some experience in the FDP Unit as well.”

 

The conversation went on until it was interrupted by Ian’s sister arriving for her own Defense lesson (along with the other Ravenclaw 5th year students).

 

**Mary**

 

“Hey Ian”, Mary suddenly yelled, “how are professor Lupin’s lessons?”

 

It was clear that neither Ian nor Fiona had noticed the Ravenclaw 5th years arriving. “He knows his stuff”, Ian replied after a while, before looking at the clock and saying, “shit, potions.”

 

Both Ian and Fiona rushed away, not wanting to be late for Snape’s first N.E.W.T. potions class.

 

“She could do worse”, Mary’s friend Melia supposed, having noticed the way Fiona and Ian had kept on talking to each other having lost track of time.

 

“What?” Mary replied.

 

“Come on”, Melia continued, “Fiona’s been after your brother for ages, she just never dared approaching him before.”

 

“I don’t know if I should be happy about that”, Roger Davies interrupted, “your brother is in Slytherin, what if he only wants to get close to Fiona to take out one of our chasers?”

 

“I wouldn’t worry about that”, Mary replied, “Ian doesn’t even like quidditch. And he did warn us after my first match against Slytherin, about them wanting to ambush me.”

 

“True”, Roger Davies admitted. The Ravenclaw students now entered the Defense classroom.

 

**Ian**

 

By Halloween, every N.E.W.T. defense student was at least able to produce a mistform (the appearance of dementors during the Hufflepuff-Gryffindor match probably had something to do with it), the first one to have a corporeal Patronus turned out to be Tamara from Gryffindor, whose patronus was a mockingbird. By Christmas, Fiona and Ian had also managed a corporeal Patronus. Ian’s was a fox, Fiona had a sparrow. From that moment on, the sparrow patronus could often be seen delivering a message to Ian, who would then send his fox towards the Ravenclaw tower.

 

The sudden appearance of Tamara’s mockingbird Patronus in Ian’s dormitory was entirely unexpected though. When Ian heard the message, “the prefects are ordered to bring our students to the Great Hall”, it explained a lot. Ian quickly woke up the other male Slytherin prefects, after which he send out his patronus to wake up the female prefects. With the six of them combined, they began herding the Slytherin students towards the Great Hall.

 

When Ian arrived in the Great Hall, he saw that the other Houses had already arrived. He approached Fiona, “have you heard anything apart from us having to bring everyone here?”

 

“I probably know as much as you do”, Fiona admitted.

 

Dumbledore came in and explained all about Sirius Black having been seen inside the Gryffindor common room, after Dumbledore had ordered the prefects to guard the Great Hall and informed them Headboy Percy Weasley and Headgirl Penelope Clearwater were in charge, he and the teachers left to search the castle. The prefects able to cast a corporeal patronus (Tamara, Ian, Fiona and one of the 7th year prefects) were told to send one to get them if they would see Black.

  
  


“No offense to your house”, Ian told Tamara after having overheard Percy suggesting to let the dementors search the castle, “but is Percy Weasley insane? It’s bad enough they station dementors outside the school.”

 

The Gryffindor prefect seemed a bit torn between agreeing with the remark and not wanting to agree with a Slytherin. “I wouldn’t let them in either”, Tamara eventually admitted.

 

The next morning took some organizing to allow the house elves to prepare breakfast, place the tables back on their regular positions and still allow the non-prefects sufficient time to sleep and still have breakfast on time.

 

**Mary**

 

“Miss O’Connor”, professor McGonagall sternly addressed Mary, “I suggest you read your magazines in your spare time. Next time I will start docking points.”

 

“Sorry professor”, Mary replied, “I wasn’t planning to be disrespectful, I had just read something about animagi in Transfiguration Today and was planning to ask you about it later on. That’s the only reason I have the magazine here.”

 

“You can ask the question at the end of the lesson”, McGonagall replied, “now you should focus on vanishing your pebbles.”

 

At the end of the lesson, professor McGonagall was true to her word and let Mary ask her question. “In Transfiguration Today”, Mary explained, “I read this article on animagi. And I was wondering what steps you should take if you wanted to try and become one yourself.”

 

“As you are obviously aware”, McGonagall explained, “you need to be quite good at Transfiguration for one. In order to even try, which is no guarantee for success, you should at least have a N.E.W.T. in Transfiguration. Otherwise the Ministry won’t allow you to even try.”

 

“I suppose that makes sense”, Mary supposed, “how do you choose which animal to become?”

 

“That’s not so easy to answer”, McGonagall replied, “you can’t simply decide, I want to be a cat, you just can’t succeed unless you already have an affinity for the animal. Not every person can even become one. Professor Dumbledore for example, wanted to become one in his youth, but he never succeeded. In certain cultures, those who which to become one, are given a certain potion which invokes what they call a vision quest. Those who pass will know their animal, those who don’t are not ready yet or will never be able to become an animagus.”

 

“If you don’t mind me asking”, Mary continued, clearly not seeing professor McGonagall partaking in such a ritual, “how did you find your animal?”

 

McGonagall took out her wand and said, “Expecto Patronum.” A cat patronus appeared, McGonagall then changed into her animal form, allowing the students to see both forms were identical in form). McGonagall returned to human form. “There are exceptions, but most animagi”, McGonagall explained, “have the same form for both their animal form and their Patronus.”

 

After McGonagall had given her some book titles about animagi, one of them containing the recipe for the vision quest potion, Mary thanked her and left as well (most others had already left).

 

“Since when do you want to become an animagus?” Mary’s friend Melia McKinnon asked.

 

“Because it would be so cool to be able to fly on my own power”, Mary replied.

 

“You do know that professor McGonagall said it’s impossible to choose your form”, Melia remembered, “how do you know you would be a bird?”

 

“I’m a flier”, Mary replied, “that’s one thing I’m certain off.”

 

**Ian**

 

“Did you know the owner is our headmaster’s brother?” Fiona asked pointing at the Hog’s Head.

 

“I didn’t know that”, Ian replied a bit surprised, “how do you know?”

 

“He was Hogwarts duelling champion in 1901”, Fiona explained, “I believe he was the last one, as the Hogwarts Duelling championship was disbanded after someone died the year after. I was bored last year and had decided to do some research before the Duelling club, which was a disappointment at that. And he was also a Ravenclaw student.”

 

“I liked my one duel with Tamara”, Ian replied, “especially beating her with an accio.”

 

“An accio?” Fiona asked, clearly not having heard that before.

 

“She kept on blocking my spells, I kept on blocking hers”, Ian explained, “so I summoned someone’s bag, which slammed against her. That distracted her sufficiently for a stunner to hit her.”

 

“That’s actually quite ingenious”, Fiona admitted, “how did you come up with that?”

 

“Professor Quirrell”, Ian explained, “he had us write about using non-duelling spell in defense. Ellen, David and I thought of using summoning and banishing. But you should be careful with that, banishing pebbles or gobstones at someone can be lethal. At least a bag is soft enough not to hurt someone too much, and I took care not to put too much power in my accio. I can show you in the practice room if you want. Or the Room of Requirement, as we can get it to set up targets.” The practice room was the classroom Lupin had reserved for his N.E.W.T. defense students. “How about tomorrow evening?” Ian suggested, “we don’t have lessons then.”

 

“I have quidditch practice then”, Fiona replied, “how about Saturday afternoon?”

 

“Good for me”, Ian agreed, “I’ll try to make sure the Room of Requirements is unused then.”

 

**Mary**

 

Tonight it was the Ravenclaw vs. Gryffindor match, which had Potter riding his new Firebolt. The match began, Mary and the others had been told by Davies that unless Gryffindor won by over 200 points they would be out of the running.

 

The Gryffindor chasers made good use of Ravenclaw’s new keeper not having had all too much experience (he had after all only become keeper this year). Furthermore, Mary might have been a better beater than either Weasley twin, but she and the new beater (third year Thomas Stark) could never hope to get close to the level of cooperation between the twins. When she heard the stand was 50 to zero, she began shadowing Potter.

 

With Mary focused on Potter, the Gryffindor chasers managed to bring the score up to 80 to zero.

 

When Mary saw Potter had the Snitch in his sight, she wasted no time and slammed a bludger at him. Potter did succeed in dodging her bludger (he wouldn’t have been able on his less manoeuvrable Nimbus), but in doing so, Potter lost sight of the snitch. One of the twins retaliated by smashing a bludger in Mary’s direction, which she promptly dodged.

 

Mary grinned as she saw Cho effectively blocking Potter and once again losing him the snitch. “Damn”, Mary swore, “that Firebolt is fast.” Knowing that the firebolt could easily outfly a bludger, Mary returned to harassing the Gryffindor chasers. This allowed Ravenclaw to score a few times making the new score 80 to 30. Unfortunately, her few attempts at knocking Wood of his broom had all failed, leaving the talented Gryffindor keeper stubbornly on his broom.

 

It was then that suddenly dementors seemed to come on the field, Potter didn’t even look back as he sent a patronus at them, right before catching the snitch.

  
  


“Well”, Mary approached her Gryffindor counterparts, “it seems you were the better team today.”

 

“You almost took out our seeker”, Fred admitted, “I don’t think he would have been able to finish the match if your bludger had hit.”

 

“True”, Mary replied, “but almost doesn’t win a match. Congratulations. And at least that means Slytherin doesn’t win, not that they even stood a chance with their idiot seeker. I still don’t understand why they didn’t replace Malfoy with someone who can actually fly.”

 

**Ian**

 

“At least it explains why his patronus is a werewolf”, Ian supposed after Snape had “accidently” told everyone in Slytherin that Lupin was a werewolf, “it’s actually a shame he stops, he was a good teacher.”

 

“He was”, David agreed, “I wonder who they’ll have next year.”

 

“Hopefully someone like Lupin”, Ian hoped, “even if it’s just because I want to ace my Defense N.E.W.T.”

 

“We can only hope”, Ellen replied.

  
  


After the end of year feast (with once again a Gryffindor win), Ian went up to the Ravenclaw table to speak with Fiona.

 

“You do need to watch out for Morrigan”, Ian saw the need to warn Fiona, “she bites if she thinks you aren’t fast enough in removing the letter from her.”

 

“I already noticed”, Fiona replied, “I’ll be alright.”

 

**Mary**

  
Mary was still looking at the potion she was holding, after McGonagall had spoken with the O.W.L. examinator, she had made sure she received a flask containing the animagus vision quest potion (in fact, McGonagall knew Mary would have tried brewing it herself otherwise, giving her the potion was the safer option). She couldn’t wait to try it at home.


	7. 7th year (1994 - 1995)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At the end of this chapter, you can see a review of the first real departure from canon; I also changed the story somewhat during the quidditch match between Ireland and Bulgaria, but that's mostly dialogue.
> 
> The next Volume will start with Ian's first year at the Auror Academy, it will also entail Mary's last year at Hogwarts (and the whole Umbridge mess)

** Mary **

 

“Are you sure you don’t want to come?” Mary asked her brother, “I heard Fiona would be there.”

 

“But she likes watching quidditch”, Ian replied, “I don’t.” In fact, Ian was probably one of the few Irish wizards who didn’t care whether Ireland or Bulgaria would win the world championship. “Apart from Fiona, the only thing there I would even be remotely interested in, would be the wards”, Ian continued, “of which the only real difference with the wards around our property, would be the fact that ours are less extensive.”

 

The fact that the wards were similar had a lot to do with the person hired by the Ministry to supervise the warding of the Stadium, which would be Ian and Mary’s father. To Mary’s delight, father had also insisted to ask for a seat in the top box for himself and his daughter, which the Ministry had granted.

 

The Finnigan family arrived, as Mary’s father had already been on site for several weeks, and Ian and mother wouldn’t go, it had been arranged for Mary to travel with the nearby Finnigans. “Do you want something to drink before you go?” mother asked the Finnigans.

 

“Our portkey leaves in 30 minutes”, mrs Finnigan replied apologetically, “and we still have quite a walk ahead of you, is Mary ready?”

 

“I am”, Mary replied, since her tent and other camping gear was already present at the camping ground, she didn’t have that much packing to do. In fact, Mary didn’t bring anything apart from her beater bat (which she wanted the Irish beaters to sign) and her wand.

  
  
  


About twenty minutes later, Mary, the Finnigans and a few other nearby magical families all grouped around the portkey (a rusty cooking pot). mrs Finnigan kept a good look at her watch, before eventually telling everyone to take hold of the portkey.

 

The feeling wasn’t exactly pleasant, but eventually they did reach a secluded spot near the camping grounds. Mary’s father was the one awaiting them. “you’re all in the Irish compound”, Michael O’Connor, Mary’s father, saw on his list, “it’s probably the easiest if you wait here for a few minutes, my replacement can arrive any minute now. When he arrives, I will walk you there.” While mr O’Connor wasn’t in fact an employee at the Ministry, he was still the person who knew the wards best, which was why he had been asked to continue helping the Ministry personel (to which he had agreed).

 

A few minutes later, a Ministry official arrived to take over portkey watch from Mary’s father and the group left towards ‘the Irish Compound’, basically a camping ground completely filled with Irish fans. “I told a few of the others that I would be quite willing to ward their tents”, Mary’s father told the group, “but they refused, even though the ward in question would only ensure that the muggle owner of this camping ground will only see regular tents instead of what you are about to see, while everyone else would still see the tents as they are.”

 

“You can do that?” Seamus Finnigan asked in surprise.

 

“It’s not as if that’s all too difficult, for a warder that is”, Mary replied instead, “such wards are also placed over Hogwarts itself, in the unlikely chance that a muggle would be able to get past the muggle repelling wards, they wouldn’t see the castle as it is, but would see castle ruins. With warning signs about falling stonework at that.”

 

“I don’t think I would be able to ward anything that size”, Mary’s father added, “but the principal would be the same indeed.”

  
  
  


“Do you see the man over there?” mr O’Connor asked the group with him, “he’s the owner of this camping ground. He’s a squib so you can pay in either pounds or wizarding money. The other camping grounds are owned by muggles, so try not to use magic around them, the Ministry doesn’t like that.”

 

After the others had approached the campground owner, Mary’s father showed Mary their tent. “I’m afraid you will have to share your room this time”, father told Mary, “I’ve stocked the third room with warding supplies.”

 

“Share?” Mary asked, “with who?”

 

“See for yourself”, father replied. Mary entered the three bedroom tent, and quickly headed towards her room, where she saw cousin Eoife reading one of her books.

  
  
  


“Eoife”, Mary exclaimed surprised, “I didn’t know you were going to be here.” Eoife was the only daughter of Siobhan, who was the sister of Mary’s mother. Eoife was also a squib.

 

“I decided that I could work on my Doctorate here as good as anywhere else”, Eoife replied, “and I want to see Ireland win.” Eoife was currently trying to get a PHD in informatics. As she would often say, if you can’t use magic, then use muggle technology. Eoife was actually one of the reasons why Mary had chosen to follow muggle studies at Hogwarts.

 

“Is that you competer?” Mary suddenly asked, seeing a big metal box and a screen standing in a corner.

 

“That’s my computer indeed”, Eoife replied, “uncle Michael has made sure it works inside this tent and he has even charmed a small generator to provide the necessary electricity.

 

Mary took a closer look, “why are there runes on the competer?”

 

“It’s computer actually”, Eoife corrected, “but to answer your question, I’m not sure how it works, but according to uncle Michael, they power a charm which makes sure the computer won’t overheat. He also added a charm to make sure muggles can’t see the runes and a self repair charm.”

 

“Won’t muggles notice that last feature?” Mary wondered, “I mean, I doubt anyone wouldn’t notice a computer repairing itself.”

 

“Not really”, Eoife replied, “as your father told me, he made sure that if the self repair would be activated, a muggle repelling charm would be activated first, which would only be deactivated once reparations are complete. The coolest part is something entirely different though.”

 

Eoife opened the computer and pointed at the hard drives, “all the data on my computer are stored on these things. As you can see, these are also protected by charms.”

 

“I don’t see what’s so cool about that”, Mary observed.

 

Eoife grinned, “the third hard drive is in between the two currently visible ones.”

 

A third hard drive appeared.

 

“Your father has added a Fidelius charm on that one”, Eoife explained, “basically, I can write whatever I want on the magical world on that hard drive, and no one would be able to find it, unless I allow them to.”

 

“That is cool”, Mary admitted.

  
  
  


Eoife now sat down on her bed and turned towards Mary, “I heard someone wanted to become an animagus.”

 

“How do you know that?” Mary wanted to know.

 

“The owner of this campground is your transfiguration professor’s nephew”, Eoife replied, “his aunt Minerva had brought up the subject during a family dinner, your professor is actually rooting for you to succeed, but you haven’t heard that from me.”

 

Mary thought it a bit weird to hear Eoife refer to McGonagall by her first name, but then again, Eoife had never been to Hogwarts. “According to the Native American vision potion”, Mary told her cousin, “I should be able to become an animagus. As it turns out, my inner animal is a peregrine falcon.”

 

“Cool”, Eoife replied, “I can certainly use that. Tell me, would you be prepared to impersonate a tamed peregrine falcon and thereby allow me to impress the guys at the university?”

 

“You do know that I can’t actually register until I have a N.E.W.T. in Transfiguration”, Mary remarked, “which will take at least 2 years.”

 

“It also takes years to become an actual falconeer”, Eoife countered, “having the falcon being my own cousin makes sure I can simply skip all that.”

 

“Fine”, Mary supposed, “if I succeed, and you still want me to, I’ll do it. But I choose the name you use when I’m a falcon.”

  
  
  


A few days later, the match would take place. “You are not in the top box with us?” Mary asked Eoife in surprise.

 

“I’m lucky the Ministry even allowed me in the stadium”, Eoife replied, “that blonde bigot Lucius Malfoy had almost convinced the Minister to ban all squibs from the stadium all together. If your father hadn’t threatened not to continue warding the place, Malfoy would have succeeded. I will be sitting near the Irish hoops, next to the Finnigan family.”

 

“Then I suppose I’ll see you after the match”, Mary told her cousin.

  
  
  


When they arrived at the top box, Mary’s father had somewhat mixed feelings about Arthur Weasley’s presence (his improvements to Eoife’s computer were after all not entirely legal), but he did eventually greet the man.

 

“I didn’t expect to see you here”, Mary told the Weasley twins (she didn’t know the others half that well after all, apart from Percy, but that was mostly due to getting detentions from him), “how did you get tickets for the top box? I know we only got in because father was the one who warded the place.”

 

“Ludo Bagman”, Fred or George replied, “he and our father go way back, which was why he was able to get us tickets.”

 

“I for one am glad for that”, Mary decided, “I almost feared that Malfoy over there would be the only one I know in here. And as his father had almost succeeded in banning my cousin from the stadium ...”

 

“Why would he do that?” Hermione Granger interrupted.

 

“Let’s just say”, Mary replied, “if my father hadn’t threatened not to ward this place, the Minister would have agreed to Malfoy’s “request” not to allow squibs entry into the stadium. At least, that’s what cousin Eoife told me. You’re Hermione Granger aren’t you?”

 

“I am”, Hermione confirmed.

 

“I thought so”, Mary grinned, “you are infamous at some places in Hogwarts. But let’s see, who’s with you.” Mary immediately recognized Harry Potter, “Harry Potter, I still think that you wouldn’t have been able to dodge my bludger on a Nimbus, your firebolt is quite impressive.” Then she turned to Ginny, “you are Luna’s friend Ginny aren’t you?” After ignoring former headboy Percy, Mary turned towards Bill, “you must be Bill, the cursebreaker, father speaks fondly of you.”

 

“Coming from him that’s quite a compliment”, Bill replied.

 

“At least the beaters are still in a majority in here”, Mary grinned as she turned towards Charlie Weasley before continuing just loud enough for Malfoy to hear, “seekers who can’t catch a snitch don’t count.”

 

“I don’t think anyone would disagree with you on that”, one of the twins replied, “especially while you are carrying that beater bat.”

  
  
  


After Mary had also been introduced to Ron (actually the only Weasley she didn’t know by name before), she remembered something she had to ask Potter. “Almost forgotten”, Mary addressed Potter, “Ellen told me to ask you whether you had been contacted by that Belgian auror, I suppose she had known you would be in the top box as well.”

 

“Why would a Belgian auror be contacting Harry?” Ron wanted to know.

 

“How should I know?” Mary replied, “I only know Ellen asked me to pass on the message.”

 

“She’s a parselmouth”, Harry told Ron (not that the others couldn’t hear it), “the auror I mean, that Ellen thought it would be good for me to speak with another parselmouth about what it all means.”

  
  


The mascottes entered the stadium, upon recognizing veela, Mary’s father immediately invoked a small ward to protect himself from their allure. After the veela had finished dancing, a troupe of leprechauns entered the stadium as well. Being Irish as well, Mary was quite aware of the vanishing nature of leprechaun gold, making sure she didn’t bother collecting it.

  
  
  


“He’s so good”, Mary couldn’t help remarking (not that she would ever admit it, but she had somewhat of a crush on the player she referred to).

 

“Krum?” Ron asked overhearing this.

 

“Hell no”, Mary replied, “I’m Irish if you haven’t noticed, Finbar Quigley, he’s even a better beater than Gwenog Jones.”

 

When one of Quigley’s bludgers literally broke Krum’s nose, Mary stood up cheering. It was a shame that right afterwards, Krum still managed to grab the snitch. Then again, Ireland still won, so there was no reason to stop cheering.

  
  
  


When the Irish team entered the top box, Mary couldn’t help herself and approached Quigley and Connolly, who agreed to sign her beater bat. “I especially liked how you smashed that bludger right at Krum”, Mary told Quigley, “hitting seekers is always the best part of being a beater.”

 

“I won’t argue with that lass”, Quigley replied, “use your bat well.”

 

After the Irish team, the Bulgarian team passed through as well, they were obviously less cheerful.

 

** Ian **

 

“I know they told you two what was going to happen”, David argued, knowing something would be happening at Hogwarts, but not what would happen.

 

“I’m sure professor Dumbledore will explain everything in a moment”, Ellen Geerts, the new headgirl, answered, “and I don’t think you would believe me if I would tell you anyhow.”

 

“I thought they were joking at first”, Ian added, who as prefect had been informed as well.

  
  
  


“... The Triwizard Tournament”, still resounded through the Great Hall after Dumbledore had explained it.

 

It was silent for a while, until one of the Weasley twins exclaimed, “you’re joking.”

 

“I’m not joking mister Weasley”, Dumbledore corrected, “although I did hear an interesting one about a troll, a hag ...” McGonagall coughed. “But maybe know isn’t the time”, Dumbledore continued.

 

“For safety reasons”, Dumbledore informed everyone, “we won’t allow anyone under 17 to enter their name.”

 

“How will they enforce that?” David wondered?

 

“An age line I presume”, Ian replied, before taking the Family Warding Tome, “I mean, it’s quite a straightforward ward. I could probably create one if I wanted, so we can be sure professor Dumbledore would have no problem whatsoever with it.”

 

“Is there anything in there on breaking one?” David wondered, “not that I would need it, I’m just curious.”

 

“An aging potion could work”, Ian replied, “but I think professor Dumbledore would have thought of that. Maybe writing your name on a piece of parchment and using magic to get it in the Goblet?”

 

“I think he will have thought of that as well”, Ellen remarked.

 

“Probably”, Ian admitted, “then again, we are all 17, so we won’t have a problem anyhow.”

 

** Mary **

 

A similar conversation was ongoing at the Ravenclaw table, where most of the Ravenclaw quidditch team was still pissed that the quidditch cup had been cancelled and they were too young to participate in the Triwizard Tournament.

 

“What if we let a 17 year old student enter our names?” Mary eventually suggested after the other ideas had been rejected.

 

“They would probably have made sure you can’t enter more than one piece of parchment in the Goblet”, Melia McKinnon replied, “and which 17 year old will you convince to put one of our names in the goblet instead of his or her own? And of course I would have to report you to professor Flitwick as I’m still a prefect.”

  
  
  


Not really sure whether her friend was joking or not, Mary decided to change the topic, “do you remember that conversation about animagi I had with professor McGonagall last year? At the end of the year, she made sure I had the potion she told us about. Probably because she knew I would have tried making it myself otherwise and she didn’t want me to poison myself accidentally.”

 

Her brother might have been very good in potioneering, Mary wasn’t, in fact she had barely managed to get an Exceeds Expectations for her Potions O.W.L. which meant she couldn’t go for a N.E.W.T. on the subject.

 

“Did it show you anything?” Melia wanted to know.

 

“According to the potion”, Mary replied, “I can become an animagus, specifically, a peregrine falcon animagus.”

 

“That’s cool”, Melia had to admit, “I guess that means you’ll be continuing transfiguration?”

 

“I will”, Mary confirmed, “I’ll be following Charms, Defense, Transfiguration, Herbology, Muggle Studies and Care of Magical Creatures.”

 

“I follow most of them as well”, Melia replied, “but I will follow Ancient Runes and Arithmancy instead of Muggle Studies and Magical Creatures. And I’m still going to follow Potions.”

 

“I would have as well if Snape didn’t insist on only accepting students with an Outstanding on their N.E.W.T.”, Mary admitted, “not that I’m complaining, I’m actually glad to be rid of Snape. And it’s not as if I won’t have more than enough work with these lessons and my extra transfiguration lessons with professor McGonagall, she wants to help me prepare the animagus groundwork.”

 

** Ian **

 

“Professor Lupin has informed me you are all capable of producing at least a mistform Patronus”, professor Moody began his first lesson, “Primrose, O’Connor and Dragonheart, I believe you were even able to conjure a corporeal patronus?”

 

“We are sir”, Tamara Primrose replied.

 

“While I won’t deny that to be quite an accomplishment”, Moody continued, “I’m afraid that you are behind on dealing with curses. Let’s begin with the worst three curses, the Unforgivables. Those which, when cast upon another human being, will lead to a lifelong incarceration in Azkaban. Yes O’Connor?”

 

“I was wondering something”, Ian explained, “wouldn’t it make more sense to punish the effect of the curses instead of the curses themselves? I mean, most spells can be used to kill if one really tries, not? It’s not as if Avada Kedavra is the only lethal spell, a Reducto for example.”

 

“The difference is that a Reducto aimed at your face can be blocked with a simple shield charm, there is no known defense to the killing curse.” Moody took a spider out of a pot and let it walk across the table, “Avada Kedavra!” a green beam hit the spider, which died instantly.

 

“Still”, Ian insisted, “a shield charm only blocks direct magic, it wouldn’t help you if someone would banish pebbles at high speed towards you, which can kill you as well.”

 

“There are specific shield charms which deal with exactly that kind of attacks”, Moody answered after a while, “but I suggest we will return to them in a later lesson. Does anyone know another Unforgivable?”

  
  
  


Fiona raised her hand. “Yes, miss Dragonheart?”

 

“There is the Imperius charm”, Fiona knew.

 

“I would have hoped you to know it”, Moody replied, “your mother told you didn’t she?”

 

“She did”, Fiona confirmed.

 

“She’s a good auror”, Moody remarked, “she was my intern actually. The Imperius curse now, the Ministry had a lot of problems with that one.” Moody took a second spider out of a jar. “Imperio”, he yelled at the spider, after which he had it perform pirouettes across the classroom. “When under the influence of an Imperius curse”, Moody explained, “people can be forced to perform whatever the caster wants. One advantage we have though, is that this curse can be thrown off by the victim, unlike with the other two Unforgivables. Can someone tell me the last one?”

  
  
  


“The Cruciatus curse”, Ellen answered, “the torture curse.”

 

“I need a bigger spider for this demonstration”, Moody replied, “Engorgio!” The last spider swoll up. “Crucio!” It was immediately clear that the spider was suffering under the curse. After he had lifted the curse, the spider was returned to its former size and put back into its jar. “This curse leaves no traces, no wounds”, Moody explained, “it solely creates excruciating pain.”

  
  
  


After the lesson, Moody asked both Ian and Fiona to linger for a while. Curious about what Moody wanted, they decided to comply. “I heard from my contacts in the auror department that the two of you are thinking about joining the aurors yourselves”, he remarked, “which is why I want to offer you two extra lessons should you want them.”

 

Ian and Fiona looked at each other for a while, before accepting. “Are Saturday afternoons acceptable for the two of you?” Moody asked.

 

“As the quidditch cup has been cancelled this year”, Fiona replied, “Saturday afternoon is good for me.”

 

“Saturday afternoon is good for me as well”, Ian added.

 

** Mary **

 

Professor McGonagall proved to have quite an unorthodox approach to learning about animagi, as she had Mary flying at 200 feet above the ground. “You aren’t ready yet for a full transformation”, McGonagall told her on the ground, “but I believe you could manage a partial one.” McGonagall had conjured a small bird which was flying low over the grass in the quidditch stadium.

 

“What I want you to do”, McGonagall had told her, “is to transfigure your eyes into peregrine falcon eyes using only the internal magic we have been practicing, you have succeeded in the classroom, now I want you to do it while flying. Once you succeed, you are to dive down, catch the bird and turn your eyes back to normal.” Mary suspected that if her animal was a cat, McGonagall would have chosen a different approach.

 

It took a lot more effort than in the quiet classroom, but eventually Mary successfully transfigured her eyes. First she flew a bit around trying to get use to the difference in eyesight. When she was confident she had the grasp, she turned to the grass, where she quickly spotted the bird. Her first attempt at catching the bird failed. “Again”, McGonagall ordered.

 

At the fourth time, Mary successfully grasped the conjured bird. She missed again the fifth time, but after that she took it every time. “Excellent O’Connor”, McGonagall told her, “I want you to keep on practicing on transfiguring your eyes during the following week. Next week, we will start by repeating this exercise, after which we will be start trying to transfigure your entire head back and forth. Don’t forget, transfigurations aren’t allowed in quidditch matches.”

 

** Ian **

 

“Here goes it”, Ian decided, as he put his name in the Goblet of Fire, he had almost decided not to. But he had changed his mind at the last moment. David had put his name in as well, Ellen had decided not to. Fiona hadn’t put her name in either, Fiona’s Gryffindor friend, Tamara had though.

 

“I guess we’ll know tonight”, Ian supposed.

  
  
  


That evening, the tensions were quite high in the Great Hall, as the 3 Champions would be chosen at the end of the Feast. Finally, Dumbledore stood up and approached the Goblet of Fire, which had now been placed where the Sorting Hat would be during the Sorting ceremony.

 

A first piece of parchment flew out. “For Durmstrang Institute”, professor Dumbledore announced, “I give you Victor Krum!” A loud applause resounded as Krum approached Dumbledore, who send him inside a small chamber where he was to await the other champions.

 

“For Beauxbatons Academy of Magic”, Dumbledore continued as a next piece of parchment came out, “I give you Fleur Delacour.” Several of the other Beauxbatons students almost cried after hearing this.

 

“For Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry”, Dumbledore concluded, “I give you Cedric Diggory!” A polite applause came from most of the tables, but the largest applause came from Diggory’s own Hufflepuff.

 

Dumbledore had almost turned away to follow the three champions, when a 4th piece of Parchment came out. Dumbledore hesitated a while before saying, “Harry Potter.” The Great Hall remained silent.

 

** Mary **

 

With the First Task behind them, the students were now looking forward to the Yule Ball, which would take place during Christmas night. Having given up the hope that he would ask her himself, Mary had decided to approach Roger Davies and ask him herself. Which was what she was about to do when Roger Davies suddenly went to his knees and asked Fleur Delacour. Mary ran back to the Ravenclaw Common Room, muttering, “Stupid veela.”

  
  
  


“I thought you said you didn’t like him”, Melia reasoned after finally having heard why Mary was upset, “so what is the problem with Roger Davies going with Delacour to the Yule Ball?”

 

“Of course I don’t like him like that”, Mary replied, clearly lying through her teeth.

 

“Of course you don’t”, Melia decided not to argue the point, “anyway, just be yourself and you will be asked by someone, I know you will.”

 

“Just try to remember not to knock them into the hospital wing”, Fiona Dragonheart added grinning and absolutely not helpful.

 

“It’s easy for you”, Mary retorted, “my brother probably asked you the moment he knew there even was a Yule Ball.”

 

Fiona could hardly deny that (even if it was just because of the fact that half Ravenclaw had seen Ian’s Patronus coming in, after which Fiona had left the Ravenclaw tower and had been approached by Ian who had been waiting there to ask her).

 

“You could always use the partially transform as you have been learning with McGonagall”, Melia even less helpfully added, “and then use you falcon beak to drive Delacour away.”

  
  
  


Eventually, Melia was proven correct, as it didn’t take all too long for one of the Durmstrang boys to ask Mary. Piotr Ivanovich seemed nice enough at that, so Mary had chosen to accept.

 

** Ian **

 

As the year continued, Ian kept on creating excellent potions during Snape’s N.E.W.T. classes. To be fair, Fiona did almost as well. Not that you could hear that from Snape’s remarks, then again, Snape did have a bias against non Slytherins.

 

“Damn”, Ian suddenly swore, as he noticed he had stirred too many times (they were brewing Felix Felicis, in which small mistakes as that could ruin the entire potion). The effect of the lacewings can be modified by adding a few unicorn hairs, Ian remembered. As he rushed to the ingredients storage.

 

“O’Connor”, Snape asked as he noticed Ian adding an ingredient not listed on the recipe, “what in Merlin’s name are you doing?”

 

“I over stirred”, Ian replied, “which has made sure the lacewings would have too much of an effect, by adding the unicorn hairs in this particular amount, I am trying to save the potion.”

 

“Good thinking”, Snape grudgingly agreed (if Ian wasn’t a Slytherin, he would probably have let him start over from scratch), “to counteract the unicorn hair’s effect on the rest of the potion, I suggest to stir two times clockwise, one time counterclockwise and two more times clockwise instead of what’s written on the recipe. The rest should work out if you stick to the recipe from then on.”

 

Ian wasn’t sure whether he should be happy to have Snape helping him like that, but then again, the others in the classroom had heard it anyhow.

 

At the end of the lesson, Ian handed in his potion, while it wouldn’t be as potent as it could have been, Ian was at least reasonably certain it would work. Snape noticed that everyone with a working potion had scooped up quite a bit before emptying their cauldron.

 

“I’m not going to stop you from taking the potion with you”, Snape remarked, “but unless you want to poison yourself, it would be safest to wait until I’ve checked your potions before using them. You are not allowed to use them during sport matches or examinations. Class dismissed.”

 

** Mary **

 

The Yule ball was about to begin, Mary had already dressed in her light green dressrobe and finished her hair. To be fair, Mary had cheated somewhat by using her transfiguration skills to increase her hair length from shoulder length to half a feet longer. Then again, she was hardly the only one. Her mother had loaned Mary an old pendant, in fact an heirloom from her own family (Mary and Ian were descended from two old Irish families, the O’Connor family by their father and the Ó hEachthairn by their mother. While father’s family was the older one, their mother’s family still possessed two seats in the Wizengamot). All by all, Mary’s friend Melia assured her she looked beautiful.

 

Several boys were already waiting outside the tower when Mary came out, Mary recognized the youngest Weasley boy and obviously her brother Ian, Diggory and last but not least her own date, the Durmstrang student Piotr Ivanovich.

 

“Impressive enchanting”, Piotr remarked immediately noticing the family heirloom Mary was wearing.

 

“Is that seriously the first thing you noticed?” Mary asked a bit indignated.

 

“I vas simply unable not to notice the craftsmanship”, Piotr replied, before explaining that his family made his living creating and enchanting jewellery.

 

“It’s an old family heirloom”, Mary replied, a bit mollified after hearing Piotr’s explanation, “I believe it glows when in close proximity to poison. Mother loaned it to me for the ball.”

  
  
  


Mary and the others had been waiting quite a while for the champions to arrive (even if it was only because of the fact that the champions would open the ball). But eventually they came. Of the four champions, Delacour and Diggory proved to be quite a bit better in dancing than the other two. Not that Mary would ever admit Delacour to be a good dancer, as she was still nurturing a grudge due to Delacour having Roger Davies as a partner.

 

“He’s a good seeker”, Mary admitted when later on her conversation with Ivanovich had turned to quidditch and therefore touched upon the subject of Krum, “I suppose that if I had seen him playing against any other team but Ireland, I might have supported his team, although I didn’t like the Bulgarian beaters very much. They didn’t cooperate that much with each other for one.”

 

“Russia’s beaters vere much better”, Piotr remarked after hearing that, “but it vas still only six minutes before he caught the snitch.” Piotr clearly meant Krum.

  
  
  


Later in the evening, the subject had turned to the differences between Durmstrang and Hogwarts. “I heard that Durmstrang has an entire course on warding and cursebreaking”, Mary remarked, “while we only have an Ancient Runes course, which only touches on the basics.”

 

“Vile that is true”, Piotr replied, “I’m not sure ours is the better option. Ve learn wards, yes, but ve don’t really learn the basics behind it.”

 

“I suppose that in both ways”, Mary supposed, “you still need quite a bit of training if you actually want to do something in the field. Father did spend 7 years interning under my great uncle for example.”

 

“Your father is a cursebreaker then?” Piotr assumed.

 

“A warder in fact”, Mary replied, “although he is a decent cursebreaker as well.” Both fields were after all complementary. “Our family has been dabbling in warding for generations”, Mary continued, “which is probably the reason why father is about the only independent warder of note in the isles.”

 

As most pureblood families (even those who didn’t care as much as most about blood purity as the O’Connors), the O’Connor family kept a close lid on several family magical traditions (spell tomes which had been blood warded to keep out non relatives were quite common). In case of the O’Connors that would be warding. Mary’s maternal family had long been known to bring forth excellent healers (which they shared outside the family more than most families, given the nature of the spells), not that either Mary or Ian planned to follow in either tradition. Ian’s study of warding was mostly because he considered it a good skill for an auror to possess. Mary on the other hand didn’t see the need to have more than a basic knowledge in either field.

 

** Ian **

 

Ian was satisfied with the written portion of his Defense against the Dark Arts N.E.W.T. examination, now he only had to successfully complete the practical portion and his N.E.W.T.s would be completed.

 

“Mr O’Connor”, the old man Tofty from the Wizarding Examinations Authority said, “come with me please.”

 

Ian followed the old man into a small classroom.

 

“I heard you were planning to become an auror?” Tofty remarked, after Ian nodded in agreement, Tofty continued, “then I won’t let you wait any longer, as you can see, I have several cards on this table. I need you to take ten cards, depending on which ones you take, you will have to demonstrate different techniques. Understood?”

 

“I do sir”, Ian replied as he pulled out his first card.

 

“You start out with a difficult one young man”, Tofty remarked, “I need you to demonstrate the patronus charm. It won’t be necessary for it to be a corporeal patronus, but you would get bonus points for one.”

 

Ian thought for a while and settled on a memory, “Expecto Patronum!” A silver fox came out of Ian’s wand.

 

“Impressive young man”, Tofty admitted, “your patronus is fully formed.”

 

“Fiona and I”, Ian admitted, “have been using our patronuses to communicate with each other throughout this and the second part of the previous year.”

 

“That explains a lot”, Tofty replied with a smile, “but let’s continue, take the next card.”

  
  
  


Half an hour later, Ian had finished, he had been able to properly execute all the required spells. “Fiona”, Ian saw his girlfriend, “how did it go with you?”

 

“I think I passed”, Fiona replied, “it’s a shame my patronus wasn’t asked, but then again, I successfully cast all the spells I had to cast.”

 

“Me too”, Ian replied, “they did ask for my patronus, mister Tofty said he was impressed.”

 

“I wouldn’t have expected any less”, Fiona replied, “but I must be going.”

 

“Of course”, Ian realized, “good luck with your History exam tomorrow.”

 

“Thanks Ian”, Fiona answered before kissing her boyfriend and leaving towards the library.

 

** Mary **

 

“Really?” Melia wanted to know, “you actually succeeded in changing completely into a peregrine falcon.” The friends were waiting for the third challenge to begin, not that they would be able to see that much, the champions would be disappearing into a maze after all.

 

“I still can’t change myself back”, Mary admitted, “at least not when I have transfigured my head as well, but professor McGonagall said that is the most difficult part. She advised me to only train when someone able to force myself back into human form is present.”

 

Mary had just turned 17 which made sure she was now allowed to use magic outside of school. Given the protections around the O’Connor mansion, it was nearly impossible for the uninvited to enter their grounds (there was a reason Ian and Mary’s father was considered one of the best warders in Europe), which made sure no muggle would notice her training herself on their grounds. As long as Mary would remain at home while transfiguring herself, she would break no law.

 

The first champions entered the maze.

 

“I’m going back inside”, Melia remarked after the last champion had entered the maze, “I mean, it’s not as if we can actually see anything.”

 

“You’re right”, Mary replied, “I don’t feel like watching a hedge for a few hours either. Let’s go swimming.”

 

“In the lake?” Melia remarked a bit surprised, “I thought you didn’t like going in the lake.”

 

“I don’t”, Mary continued, “but I do know that the Room of Requirements is probably unused at the moment, our quidditch team had decided to spend the time we would otherwise have used to train quidditch swimming  in there. The best part is, you can ask the Room of Requirements which form you want the pool to have, you can even have it conjure swimsuits.”

 

“Why not”, Melia supposed, “it would be more interesting than this.”

 

A bit later, the friends arrived at the Room of Requirements and changed it into a swimming pool.

 

** Ian **

 

During the ride back to King’s Cross, most former 7th year students were sitting together. “I believe Potter”, Ian replied, “his explanation is the only one makings any sense after all. Unless anyone would believe Potter used the killing curse on Diggory.”

 

“He didn’t”, Fiona added, “I saw professor Flitwick using priori incantatem on his wand, the last spells he used were stupefy and expelliarmus.”

 

“If you really want to work in the auror department”, Ellen remarked, “I wouldn’t say that out loud. According to father the British Minister has just instigated the procedure to depose Dumbledore as Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards. Don’t get me wrong, I believe Potter is right as well, but you could do more to prepare the world from inside the Ministry than outside of it.”

 

“That’s quite a Slytherin answer”, the Gryffindor Tamara replied, “but you are probably correct.”

 

“I am a Slytherin”, Ellen replied, “anyhow, my father is doing what he can to block Fudge’s proposal, he saved my grandfather from Grindelwald after all, so father owes at least that to Dumbledore. But I don’t think it will stop Fudge. Most of the African and South American representatives in the Confederation are quite happy to depose Dumbledore simply because he is a European wizard. The Commonwealth representatives mostly follow Great Britain’s lead.”

 

“My family has two Wizengamot seats”, Ian added, “our current representatives are unfortunately Fudge’s supporters, but I’ll try to convince my family they aren’t acting in the family’s best interests. If necessary, the Irish representatives can use the 1922 treaty of Cork, ending the IRW uprising.”

 

“I R Double U?” Tamara asked.

 

“The Irish Republican Wizards”, Ian replied, “parallel to the muggle uprisings against the UK in Ireland, many Irish wizards rose up against the British Ministry. I won’t go over the entire history, but at the end, it was agreed in treaty that the IRW would end its uprising. In exchange, several seats in the Wizengamot would be Irish seats. If enough Irish representatives support it, and they can claim that Ministry officials have acted directly against Irish interests. Then the Irish Wizengamot members can issue arrest warrant against these officials, apart from the Minister himself, no one is exempt. The same action can be taken against regular British citizens, such as Lucius Malfoy.”

 

“The Minister can't block it?” Ellen wondered, not having heard this before.

 

“He can't", Ian replied, "unless he would want to break the Treaty, which would mean that magical Ireland is no longer ruled by the British Ministry.”

 

“How exactly would that help us here?” David wanted to know.

 

“I wouldn’t”, Ian replied, “threatening with it though, should be able to keep Fudge in check.”


End file.
